##VIDEO ID:nlD-kyiqHKA## e e e e e e e e e e mik I turn on y okay well actually so speakers we are aiming for like seven to 10 minutes in your opening remarks um I will uh try to flash so when I'm done okay okay good evening and welcome my name is Rebecca fra and I am the spokesperson for the ammer League of Women Voters the league has organized tonight's meeting with the town of ammer and the ammer affordable housing trust and the program is co-sponsored by many other organizations listed on the slide the League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan political organization that seeks to inform voters about elections voting and issues as an organization we neither support or oppose political parties or candidates the league works at the local state and National levels we study issues and through the process of consensus we come up with positions we can act on at the state level we have a position adopted in 2008 that in summary States the league supports programs policies and regulations to address the housing needs of low and moderate income families and individuals everyone should have access to decent and affordable housing in a suitable living environment thank you to all of our panelists to repd and to algra Clark Gaston de de losr John Hornick and Greg rain for helping to put this program together at this point I would like to turn the microphone over to gestone thank you so much Rebecca thank you to the League of Women Voters for inviting the Housing Trust of ammer to support this event so my role is limited to telling you who our speakers are and uh trying to keep us on schedule so that we can be engaging in Q&A uh by8 o'clock or so uh but just by way of setting the stage uh this country is way behind building the homes that we need for the people who live around us uh but we are at a moment with a great burst of energy August 2024 Governor Healey signed the affordable homes act authorizing $5 billion in spending and among other things opening up uh the building of adus and single family zoning districts just yesterday the University of Massachusetts put out a request for proposals for developers to quote create a comprehensive long- range plan to modernize campus housing and maintain affordability for decades uh speaking for our trust we adopted a strategy premised on development funding that development and education which is what we're here to do with algra's leadership and uh we have a lot of projects that are in progress that you're going to hear about tonight so before I introduce the speakers one by one as they're about to speak let me just tell you the range of what will be covered algra Clark will be telling us about why we need affordable housing so uh desperately in our community Laura Baker will be telling us about how projects move through government and reality Peter sarapo is going to be telling us about how these projects actually get financed Keith fer is going to be telling us about a number of the exciting projects that are uh coming to this uh Valley uh uh in Amherst and representative miny Dome will be moderating the Q&A and making this uh an engaging experience so uh first algra Clark she is a social worker grew up in Amherst in addition to a long-standing member of affordable uh amher affordable housing trust she's leading the charge with our education initiative and is chair of amher community safety and social justice committee thank you geston is this on can you hear me you're good okay um so I'm algra Clark and I am going to talk a little bit about the need for more affordable housing opportunities in town um I'm going to focus on both the needs from the unhoused population that we have here the rent affordability Gap and the home ownership affordability Gap um so our Municipal affordable housing trust is a group working to create and maintain affordable housing opportunities in ammer today and tomorrow we're made up of town staff and residents working to promote affordable housing that provides quality homes for ammer residents at all stages of Life primarily we promote these goals by providing funding to developers engaging Outreach around housing initiatives and providing support and guidance to town government we have the opportunity to partner with various organizations doing work in and around ammer and so I'm going to share some of the information that they've provided to me about what they're seeing on the ground right now I did have the opportunity to speak with Tim McCarthy who is the director over at Craigs doors which is our primary shelter provider in town he informs me that currently there are 28 individuals at the congregate shelter at the Lutheran Church and there are additionally six overflow spots on particularly cold nights so there are certain degrees of temperature that necessitate additional shelter beds to open up um and those have been active in the recent days additionally there are 58 people currently at the non- congregate shelter which is through the eono lodge in Hadley and 20 of those placements were recently funded through the state's winter expansion funding um so they have been able to move some guests onto the second floor as well um because they were able to get additional funding for both Staffing and for the rooms um there are additionally 16 individuals in 15 apartment units in the low threshold housing program and so they do keep a comprehensive list of people are turned away from shelter beds every night um and that will additionally sometimes trigger finding more emergency placements um and there were 69 additional individuals that they had to find placements for the um they tell me that there have been more hotel stays in December of 2024 than in all of the previous winter combined um so the The Urge is dire right now in our our community um additionally there are 48 unsheltered people that they are still trying to find resources for um in the area so that is a little bit on the ground in terms of the unhoused population we are very fortunate that the beautiful East Gables building opened recently um thanks the valley and um in terms of some of the data captured from their application process um and this this for those who don't know is the um I'm on the word for the size of the unit Studio it's a a recently opened studio apartment home um right near ammer College and there are 28 units and there were 58 oh I have control of this let's see oh I didn't put a slide in for that just kidding um there are 501 applicants for 28 of the units and of those 501 applicants 141 of them qualified for local preference which meant people who live work or have kids in the ammer school system and then about 26 of the 28 units were filled by people from previously unstable housing situations who were coming into those new units um and having ties to this commun community so again 501 applicants for 28 units shows that there's a significant need in our community and the surrounding communities for affordable housing so we are the town of ammer is currently in the housing production plan process and we're working with Barrett Planning Group and they have just published their um public survey results so I have drawn some data from it because it's very comprehensive so there were 322 completed responses to the survey and the top three housing concerns identified were lack of affordable renting options more affordable homes for first-time homeowners and the impact of off-campus student housing on neighborhoods um I think very tellingly 82% of renters who answered the survey were experiencing significant housing cost burdens in the past year and 3 1% of homeowners were experiencing significant housing cost burdens in the past year um in terms of the current median income for owner occupied households in ammer the median income is 137,138 61177 for renter occupied housing households which is a pretty significant Gap and then when you take into consideration what rent costs in ammer currently the typical Studio price from the market rent survey of November 2024 is $1,926 for 286 square feet um and a four bedroom the average rent is $ 4,629 for a 1,400 117 square foot home um which means that ammer rent prices are 11% higher than the national average so rent here is really unaffordable um and people are burdened with high costs of housing and this in it it's similar with home ownership um again from the same survey the median sales price for a home in ammer in 2024 was $600,000 whereas the me maximum affordability was about $285,100 so much on so Laura Baker is Laura Baker is real estate project manager with value Community Development uh with Decades of experiences in Community Development including Hampshire Community Action commission and Hilltown CDC and she is actively developing affordable homes in our Valley good evening I'm very pleased to be here see a lot of Familiar Faces tonight so welcome everyone oh there I am so I'm going to talk a little bit about planning and permitting um it's a complex uh path that we have to weave um and wind through to get to actually build affordable housing here in ammer as well as other places in Massachusetts so I'm going to talk about it in the context of using East Gables which is a building that algra mentioned that's at 132 Northampton Road in ammer right I'm stuck ah so um one of the things that's interesting for me and I know for volunteers that we work with is kind of where does affordable housing start um where does the concept come from who decides um what's going to get built and where and how so in my experience there are two primary driv uh for this kind of origin um one is an identified Community need can drive a design which I'm going to talk about in the case of East scabl um and the other is that a a real estate opportunity can also Drive program design um and I just threw the East Street School down there because a lot of communities have vacant buildings like schools that then become kind of the Genesis for affordable housing development so East cables as I mentioned the town had repeatedly and rigorously identified the need for small studio apartments particularly for homeless individuals this was back when ammer had you know a seasonal homeless shelter folks it would close people had nowhere to live they were living outside um and so hearing that uh echoed in a number of uh committees in town Valley Community Development where I work we began a search for a site so we didn't have a site we just knew that the town had this um expressed need so we searched for a site for over two years the town assisted Us by funding some of that work with a grant so we had to you know analyze different sites we were looking at zoning we were looking at soils we were looking at all kinds of factors we were working with engineers and Architects and so it helped to have some walking around money to do that um we probably looked at about two dozen sites uh in the town of amest specifically for this need I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong with this clear so um these are the ingredients as we've defined them um for successful affordable housing development uh first site and location second having local Advocates and champions third having a viable scale fourth having an interested developer uh who has experience and capacity and fifth having a realistic timeline and we're going to break those down a little bit more so location location location um for me as an affordable housing developer developer really the central um most important item is the site uh where it is what its characteristics are um everything kind of organizes itself around having a site I've seen communities really spin their wheels um talking about affordable housing in absence of a site you have to have a place to build um so you want it to be in in our opinion Central buildable uh have having public utilities water and sewer are pretty critical uh big enough that you can build at a a viable scale I'll talk more about that a location that makes sense to our friends in Boston who don't always understand how things work out here in western Mass um it has to have come at a reasonable cost and it has to be available able with a patient seller so the work that we do takes a long time um and so we're looking for locations that can be patient or ways to acquire them during a long holding period which adds cost to the project I do hear a lot of communities also talk about sites that would be ideal for affordable housing that are not in fact available and it is a real dead end so I would discourage that kind of conversation so site selection in my view is is half the battle hey Greg so um the state of Massachusetts also has priorities for us to think about when we look at sites they are very interested in us having Transit oriented and walkable locations meeting smart growth standards meaning dense development preserving land um and not having some red flag issues like hazardous materials or endangered species um so when we looked at 132 Northampton Road from our lens looking as affordable housing developers we these were some of the advantages that we saw it was for sale at a price we could afford it was a large parcel just under an acre and kind of level uh near town center and shopping there were new sidewalks coming it was near the bike trail and you could walk to bus stops it had Public Water and Sewer there were no Wetlands flood planes in dangerous species and most of the abing land owners were are ammer college and that we saw as an advantage and I think in the final final analysis did prove to be an advantage of the site um local Champions are also incredibly important um we are sometimes met with some skepticism as developers coming from maybe outside of a community so we're always looking for folks like everyone here um who's interested in affordable housing who lives in a community often these folks are active in local government churches nonprofits and their role is very important they kind of rally local support turn out people get letters written and make the case as we're going to do tonight about why affordable housing should be important to the people in ammer um and if you don't know what a local Champion looks like you should look over at John Hornick because John Hornick is the ultimate local champion and without him we would not have built e cables I promise you and I feel like we all in this room stand on John's shoulders um as we do this work um in addition to kind of General support we build Project Specific support at many levels as you can imagine local boards people who have lived experience either being homeless or as low-income tenants a variety of community groups funders and neighbors we do a lot of Outreach with neighbors um in the case of East Gables I think most people may know maybe people don't know um the neighbors were highly concerned about this new development in their neighborhood and so there was a lot of time spent in conversation with neighbors around this particular development that happens to a more or less degree in in any development I would say East Gables was kind of toward the extreme end of how much concern was raised by neighbors um these are some of our local Champions a select board the trust planning board John started the affordable housing Coalition which supported us and the Amis college students um wrote really brilliant and engaging um articles in their newspaper in support of this project and other local nonprofits also supported us uh it's very important to have Municipal support um and so the state when they look at funding project they do put in most of the money they're looking to see that the town has also put in money um and it and it gives us a competitive advantage in a very um a competitive environment to raise money for a project if there local funds in they're often the first money in um they're kind of a leap of faith money and they help us leverage the larger sources that we need um from the state so um process uh one of the Hallmarks I would say of ammer is process um and in our world this comes at a cost um so there are a lot of costs associated with having a longer process um if you're old enough to recognize this cartoon raise your hand so it's a fars side cartoon Einstein discovers that time is actually money um that is kind of how it feels to us uh every year I would say especially the last five years every year of delay in a project we are talking probably to $3 million in increased cost just construction costs never mind soft costs so it's something to take very seriously um how much process is needed to get to the outcome and weighing the cost of that process so building costs escalate and some other things happen we have to pay our experts and actually the codes change as we're going through the process and that can increase cost as well next um so in the case of the E scaes some kind of noteworthy examples of time costs associated with process uh the town requested as the developer we delay uh submitting to the state a a precursor document to our zoning permit they asked us that I think four times it was about seven months that we waited um we waited to hold a significantly large community meeting meeting um and then we spent a little more than six months with the zoning board of appeals in about 24 hours of hearings over I think we had nine meetings so very lengthy very detailed zoning process and so you add all that up and you're looking at maybe a year and a half of things that really just had to do with process um and I'm sure that we probably added $2 to3 million in cost as a consequence of that process so viable scale comes up a lot especially in small towns uh people would like us to build a few units here and a few units there thank you um we really need to hit 20 units or more uh to be able to access State funds and also to be able to operate uh a property efficiently pay for staff Etc um and the tool that we most often use and have used in Amis is called chapter 40b it allows us to request waivers from local zoning the waiver we request the most is for increased uh density uh it's intended to be a one stop kind of streamline process and as I mentioned in ammer it tends to turn into a very extensive process with a lot of opportunities for Community participation oh so I mentioned this before chip on my shoulder so we have six months nine meetings with the zba 91 public comments submitted 89 permit conditions um and just an aside that that what the conversation is at those meetings often doesn't match the concerns that tenants or occupants will have so the people who are evaluating the project have very different worldviews than the people who will live in it so we're building for people who are living in their car and there's a long conversation about how much closet space is enough you know it's just a little bit of a mismatch that we see so cities and towns that expedite permitting will have more bites at the state funding app and will create more affordable housing this is hugely important uh you need to have a developer there is in fact a shortage of developers in western Mass so one of John's uh Hallmark statements was his job was to set the table so that amers could attract developers so they would want to come and build an ammer um it's a long process so people need to be realistic and also at the same time that you're being realistic you have to run like heck um to have it not take even longer and you need allies that understand it's going to take a long time and are going to stay with you through the course of it so ways that localities can support affordable housing development I've mentioned these I'm not going to repeat them but streamline permitting is a big one local funds local Champions um and town properties are sometimes helpful sometimes they're burdensome just a cautionary note there we sometimes get the white elephant property um that are really really expensive to redevelop and then I'm going to stop thank you wonderful education uh thank you so much Laura uh our next speaker Peter seraphino is senior project manager with home City development out of Springfield Massachusetts previously with wayfinders he's experienced not only in managing the construction side of housing projects but is also expert in securing financing which is uh will be his Focus thank you so much Peter thank you good evening everybody so I will talk to you about uh about financing these projects and we're pretty much all using the similar tools but I'll give you a little case study of a property that home City development is uh currently developing in uh in the town of palum it's the s's about two and a half miles from here at 20 to 22 ammer Road um just just up the street a little bit and uh amethyst Brook Apartments is a 34 unit uh two Building Development to under construction right now as I said and it's consists of one two and three bedroom apartments that are going to be affordable to households earning up to 60% of are median income and then we've also uh got some other tiering where there's a couple of apartments that are available to folks uh up to 50% of area median income and then another tier for folks who uh have uh incomes of up to 30% of area median income uh and the project was conceived by home City development executive director and amoris Resident Tom kegelman who's here with us tonight um along with pum resident and longtime affordable housing consultant and chair of the pelum housing committee Tillman Lucas uh they came up with uh an idea to build uh to build affordable housing in in the town of pelum town of you know 1300 people very rural uh town with really few good sites for development due to uh the topography due to lack of of utilities due to conservation easements water restriction easements I mean um lot of reasons to to not develop affordable housing at any scale in the town of pum and Tom and Tilman found a site uh that actually did make some sense for affordable housing um the ammer water and sewer runs up ammer road right past this site and uh that was uh something that was definitely in its favor and it was a site that had been previously developed uh going back to the 1820s there was a sawmill and then later uh a factory that built uh bamboo fishing fly rods uh on this site so it was a previously developed site along amethyst Brook it was a waterfront site uh so there was a lot of caution a lot of care that had to go into the planning because of the environmental considerations of the site um it's about a half mile from the ammer pum Town Line and as I said has the benefit of the public water and sewer that made a uh that was an important factor and it was total of two Parcels that total 12 acres it was purchased by home City development in 2018 and 2019 in uh 20 August of 2021 we completed the uh chapter 40b Zoning Board of appeal and the chapter 40b comprehensive permit process and the zba issued a comprehensive permit uh we then began applying for the funding and uh finally we're afforded the affordable housing resources we needed to build the project in December of 2022 and we closed on all the financing in October of 2023 and we're almost done construction now we've got a six-unit building that will be occupied next month and we've got a 28 unit building that will be finished in May and and occupied uh in May um and as I mentioned we purchased 12 acres but it's only a 2.6 acre development site because so much of the land was uh is is undevelopable and we were fortunate we were able to donate a small sliver of land to Habitat for Humanity so they were able to expand uh their site so they could build two homes instead of one so we're we were happy about that and then when we're done construction we're going to be donating about 8 acres to the testrol land trust and it'll be preserved as conservation land so um you know a lot of public benefit from this U the 28 unit building is going to be is design certified to passive house standard so it's a highly energy efficient building and the smaller six-unit building is uh designed to meet energy star standards uh they're all electric buildings solar panels EV charging stations uh Etc and so let's talk about the financing for a minute the acquisition financing we had to go out and borrow money to buy the site originally and that was provided by uh the uh life insurance Community investment initiative and then we also got pre-development funding from uh Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation and both both were loans um and by the time we finally closed and started construction um in oh thank you yeah we got a few slides here I forgot about the slides um um by the time we finally closed and started construction U we had borrowed about $2 million um and the our small not for-profit you know mission-driven organization was at risk for over $2 million um and you know those that went for site acquisition site security um you know Insurance holding cost survey all the design costs um the legal cost to get us through the 40b process so uh pretty significant investment uh but fortunately uh we were able to you know we had a good site we had a good project and ultimately we're able to close on all the financing and and start construction um and so let's talk a little bit about what some of those funding sources were well first and foremost we use the federal low-income housing tax credits uh and those are the primary funding source for the construction uh in in this project and in almost all affordable housing projects it's the largest um generator funding source of affordable housing in the United States um and it's a credit that it's a federal credit but it's awarded by each state so we apply U to Executive Office of now known as executive office of Housing and livable communities for these Federal uh affordable housing tax credits and then Massachusetts has its own low-income housing tax credit program as well and those that was another important source of of funds here um of course the town of pum uh also provided early in the first money in was Community preservation act money and for a very small town they provided 5 $100,000 towards this project and that was a real sign of commitment by uh by the leaders of of the town of pelum and that's that's really important money to have uh in all these projects sends the right message um and then the other next most important source is uh State soft debt soft loans are loans that don't advertise don't get paid back uh unless you refinance at some point in the future um and uh uh that was also through executive office of housing on liable communities and then we also applied for uh Section 8 Project based vouchers and uh a Massachusetts Project based voucher known as an mrvp and those rental vouchers are key to allowing us to rent units to people at 30% and 50% of area median income who wouldn't be able to afford the rent um on their own I mean for example the the HUD determined fair market rent for one-bedroom apartment is uh uh somewhere around 1250 uh two-bedroom apartment is around 1,600 a month and the fairer rent for a three-bedroom is about 2,000 a month so uh these households can't afford even even those rents um uh and those are those are capped rents those are restricted rents uh without without a rental voucher where they would then pay 30% of their income uh towards the rent and the public sector makes up the difference um I mentioned the CPA funds that was important we also received funds from eversource and mass d for uh incent to incentivize us to put in EV chargers at this location um and then Mass saves also provides some incentives for um building to passive house and energy star standards those are um you know yet more applications that we have to fill out and other uh Hoops we have to jump through but you know every you even in small chunks it's they're all really critical uh Bank ESB also known as East Hampton Savings Bank they are a construction lender and they're providing permanent financing for the project um good local bank that we've done a couple projects with now and uh it's been a successful partnership and then with the tax credits we then selected a tax credit syndicator who goes out and actually finds the private sector money and in this case uh we've used Mass housing Investment corporation based out of Boston and uh they use a uh and then the mass litech Equity is provided by company called Dorfman Capital uh and they they use a variety of investors in this case I think it was an insurance company out of Connecticut uh and then of course as developer home City development provides a uh defers some of its developer fee and it takes it back it goes into the project as a loan and we get it back over time out of out of project cash flow um and those are that's the outline of the typical sources that that almost all of us use um and you know one of the unintended consequences of this project is that now uh home City development is now the uh at when the Project's complete uh at 34 units will be the largest owner of multif family property in the town of palum um and uh I can't say that about too many other towns that we operate in and you know in Massachusetts we're fortunate to have a very robust affordable housing industry with public policies and tools that that help us to build this affordable housing um but you know even with those tools in place it really comes down to as Laura had indicated it's about it's about time and money it's about managing time and money and you know in this case it was a seven-year development cycle at least a seven-year development cycle by the time we um and I'm talking about from property acquisition to tenants moving in but there was a significant time frame uh when Tom and tman were looking at sites and determining this site and then you know until we bring in all the money and pay off the construction loan is still some time after that so seven years is a long time to wait for for 34 units in in in my book um and then I think that Financial Risk uh along with that time frame tends to um disincentivize folks from wanting to uh from wanting to develop affordable housing but but at the same time the the demand for the resources is is tremendous throughout the entire state which is why it takes a couple of funding Cycles to get the resources we need and in our case um you know as I think back on it uh the zba did its part and they got us in and done in about six months and uh that was a a really positive process and I give a lot of credit to the folks of the town of palum we had Champions had a lot of Champions in in the town of palum and and that went very well uh and then you know we were able to get funded on our second application into the state which again you know I've I've had it take three times before and uh it's still a long weight but uh uh all these times add up and and that adds to risk as Laura had said and I guess my final thought about the whole financing of of these deals and the time it takes is that you know we all know that the lack of affordable housing is is a problem that's National in scope but I think this um amethyst Brook Apartments in pelum is an example of how you know a hyper local a very small town can help contribute you know there they big uh solutions to the problem um but there's also small solutions to the problem and this is the kind of thing that um you know with the right Champions and the right time and the right effort in the right sight can really make a difference so my wonderful thank you it takes a village of funders uh to get this going uh Keith Ferry uh is president and CEO of wayfinders which he joined in 2020 previously serving as senior vice president at Enterprise Community Partners a national nonprofit dedicated to increasing the housing Supply around the country Keith thanks for having me great to be here I'm also an AM resident I if you said that did you say no I didn't that that's an important point ined my ammer credentials out here too so um how many people now want to develop affordable housing after listening to to my colleagues here simple right brave souls um um between these two myself Tom and others there's you know generations of knowledge here it shouldn't take that to build housing that we need for our communities uh it shouldn't take that to help us meet our regional needs we created this system um because of politics uh we created the system uh because we're not really understanding the need and the urgency around it and so um it is um I was smiling listening to my colleagues um talk about uh the challenges and you know and trying to share their experiences but it's really important for you to understand how difficult it is that's why there aren't many people doing this work um because it takes so much time so much energy so much resource and so much specific knowledge uh to get through all these processes uh when you look at other developments in town they don't have 11 sources that's County that you had up there 10 or 11 sources they don't have that uh they don't have to go around multiple application cycles and all these things so when you're dealing with an affordable housing developer you're dealing with someone who is uh kind of run the gauntlet uh to get the housing done who's uh taken a lot of risk um as uh in terms of the time you know you hope the project will go forward lots of things can happen but why are we doing this and so we're doing this because as as algra started with talking about there's real needs here in amoris but it's not just unique to Amis and I think we all know this now work now yes it does um the need is regional the need is Statewide the need is actually throughout the country um you know I've worked in housing for over 25 years myself and um for most of the those times we talked housing was not in above thefold issue it was Education Health Care other things today housing is on the tip of everyone's tongue it's Governor hey's top priority uh she used the the first year of her Administration to put forward uh you know Landmark housing uh legislation here in the Commonwealth uh here locally uh where you finders working with others in the community and and The umon Institute uh uh convened to in 21 and 22 uh to to better understand the need of our region here uh Hampshire Hampton and Franklin counties and there's lots of data in the housing study that we came out with we came out with a two-phase housing study but the big data point that we came out with was that by 2025 we'd have a 19,000 unit housing Supply shortage not enough units to meet the needs of our community and that's just not just for for the extremely low income that's that's the highest need but there's just not enough Supply um so there needs to be more Valley seat DCS and home cities and wayfinders out there doing this work because the need is also greatest for deeply affordable units uh when looking at it from an affordability standpoint there are 17,000 households looking for housing that's affordable at $500 or less no you can't find that without the subsidies that my colleagues have talked about right and so uh it requires that partnership with government uh to get it done at the at the state level in particular where there are rental subsidies and major uh Financial subsidies to help our project built one of the other things that's important that we we found in the housing study was that um by um condition of age many of our much of our housing stock is in need of repair whether it's for you know single family housing stock or multif family most of it's built before 1970 um so needs a significant amount of repair and Rehab so preservation is also a big need in addition to building a building new uh because if we don't preser OB erve what we have we have we we run the risk of losing it and you can drive around this community even in this community where there's high demand and see uh some buildings that are in disrepair um and and when they get too far gone it becomes very costly and maybe become uh a knockdown and and a rebuild but that's very costly to do we are in the midst of buil of working on a new housing study uh that we uh will hope will be useful to to all of you and all advocates for housing in um will help you understand where we are today uh and also provide you tools to really explain the impact of housing um often when we go through these processes that Laura is talking about there is opposition uh people come up with all kinds of things I was actually talking to a mayor from a from a town I won't name who quoted me a study from 30 years ago about the the uh the cost of housing and its impact on communities and I said I don't know if that's really accurate today um and uh people will bring up things like we don't what it's going to C make us build another school that's what when I think project maybe when Peter was working at wayfinders you might have heard things like that before we had to build another school um most of us know that hopefully you know that a lot of our schools are actually way underc capacity today um so there's a lot of myths that we want to hopefully break with the next housing study to give people really understanding that real impact of housing there are there are costs uh but there are lots of benefits as well um some of the other kind of elements you know Peter talked about in Rural Housing Development the biggest challenge there is is utilities you know if you're not if you have to bring in water and sewer and all those things becomes a big Challenge and we have a lot of a lot of land but a lot of it is rural and not on Water and Sewer becomes difficult to develop on uh alra is talking about local uh cost burdens but when we add Transportation housing together which is a a key issue here in in um in the pioner valley and throughout Western massachus we do not have good public transportation so people have to have cars when you put those two costs together people are most many households are cost burdened in our region uh and finding it difficult to afford to stay here much higher cost burdens than when you compare us to the Greater Boston area because the great public transportation they may not think it's great but it's better than all we got um um in terms of the the supply issues uh you know very tight in terms of vacancy rates um that these numbers are a little dated um but very tight market in terms of um Supply um and then we live in a very segregated uh region uh most Black and Hispanic families um are living in our Gateway cities um particularly in Springfield and Holio chicke um and so there's notot not a lot of Housing Opportunity or housing mobility in our region not only because of cost um but and and but because of other housing policies and practices over time U that segregated our communities and it's hard to break that without creating getting more housing choice and opportunity we are doing some things and we have done some things here in this in the in the town of ammer um uh you know Laura was talking about opportunities that come come forward with things like a the East Street school and the East Street School is an interesting story and that it was um it wasn't a a a um at first an opportunity that would solicited a lot of response I'll just say that uh when the town initially identified it as a housing site they put it out individually as a opportunity um if I recall correctly there were no responses to that um because of the size of the the site and what was expected uh that said uh uh the town in dialogue with developers including wayfinders and others heard about what what they could do more to to make a more interesting site to develop and uh if I'm correctly John the town went out and uh acquired other land to to put out the bid with the East Street School uh and then when they when they put it out to bid again there was much more more interest for it uh we were fortunate enough to win that uh opportunity win that RFP and I now over two sites of the town has AC has put forward we're developing 78 units of mixed income housing meaning the original affordability interest which is over 40 units of affordable housing we're going to be doing there I'm we going to have Workforce housing and then some market rate units um because we see the need across that Spectrum for for easing the the housing need here in ammer uh we have some experience here in Amis we developed two other developments par farms and um Olympia Oaks um each have their own um long stories which I won't get into unless you during the Q&A a few things to understand about the the state investment in housing especially today the C current things Peter was talking about all the resources and how they come from the state and all those uh things that we need to do in selling tax credits and all of that but a few uh things that have come forward uh in over the last uh period here with the hill distal Administration uh you may not know that in the tax bill that Governor hilly um championed and got and signed uh there were some significant housing resources and increas in the state loan from housing tax credit there's a federal one and there's a state one um and so that increased the amount of credits available um there was also an increase in a program called another kind of incentive program to develop actually market rate housing in in our Gateway cities which is something that they would like to see in that's called the hdp or uh Housing Development incentive program so there were two housing things in that package uh but much more significantly and broadly uh with the support of the legislature um and um the heal distri Administration was able to uh to enact the affordable homes act uh which is uh which would have been known as the housing Bond Bill the last housing Bond bill was back in 2018 it was $1.8 billion and at that time time it was the biggest Bond bill ever um knowing uh Governor Hy knowing what the housing crisis is and the legislature knowing the housing challenges that we're facing now you see the numbers a little bit bigger than that it's an authorization amount it's not it's not an appropriation so every year they're looking at the ability of the the uh Commonwealth to bond for that money to actually raise the money to be able to fulfill the authorization amount so we'll see if we'll be able to get to that 5.16 billion U but it's going to fund housing of all different types from public housing uh to affordable housing developments that we develop uh to home ownership um as well um it also includes lots of policy proposals and the big challenge for the for the Commonwealth today is to write all the regulations and the policy that's in there uh as as gastone was talking about adus and other things yes it's in there but the regulatory uh regime the um the overseeing entities and agencies they're not all all situated yet so it's going to take us about another year or so to get all those things in place and if so there's a housing um Housing Home Ownership production tax credit there that can help us build more home home ownership units affordably hopefully uh and there's lots of other things including adus that can help alleviate the housing challenge one of the things that was also enabled uh by the the affordable homes Act was the creation of the um of a commission uh housing affordability commission um and a uh and the charge of that commission was to create a Statewide housing plan believe it or not even though we passed a 5.16 billion plan we didn't have a plan um we haven't had a plan in years decades so the good thing is this is supposed to be a recurring Five-Year Plan um and so uh that plan will be coming out in the next uh couple of weeks uh and it is going to not only talk about what the need is but it's also going to give uh a regional production goals so uh by organized by Regional planning area so uh the regional planning area for this area is a pioner valley Planning Commission it covers hamon and Hampshire County so that'll that'll be a goal for there there a Franklin Regional Council of government there'll be a plan for there uh a number for there and there'll be one for the burkers so that give us real insight in terms of what the Commonwealth wants to strive for over the next 10 years of building housing because it's going to take us a long time to fill this Gap um the um the addition there are additional commissions is another one on unlocking housing production uh and um and there are some great recommendations coming out of that commission I've got a little sneak preview into that that hopefully will speed up the process uh create more opportunities for communities to work hand inand with developers to create housing more quickly and more efficiently um in um communi throughout the Commonwealth and then there are several other commissions up there I won't list them all out but they will be rolled out over the next year or two um so important for all of us to understand the kind of state of play of what's going on at the state level as well as the local level as as already described we need local housing Champions uh not only to talk to each of the housing projects that we're trying to develop in communities and and come out and understand them and support them but also to um engage with our um our State Legislative leaders um um and to uh and and our folks in in the state house to make sure that they understand how important it is to get those resources out to us uh we have some concern in Western Massachusetts at times that as Laura was saying before that they don't quite see us and see all of our need here and we have a great need um many of the developments that you see happening in Eastern Massachusetts at a much bigger scale are happening because there are are different economics in play they can carry a lot more debt in those projects they do other things so they they can do bigger projects um but we have a need for a real partnership with the state and we need we need to make sure that um our our our projects are seen and our issues are heard um and around both the capital authorizations um uh but also that we are prioritized in developing housing so those are some of the things that I wanted to mention I know John's going to talk a little bit more about local Advocates that don't want to steal his fund there um but that's that's what I had for you today there's a there's a couple other data points I I could go over here but all this one I just want to mention before I before I stop if I could in in May of 20122 uh we started talking with our partners in housing in the region municipalities and um developers and planning commissions knowing that we had a 19,000 unit housing Supply Gap um and that um um and that we weren't close to closing by by we didn't think we're anywhere close to closing it so we started surveying our partners in these communities across Western Massachusetts it's not a comprehensive survey this is not every project that's there but what we found uh in surveying the 50 members was that there were 19 projects planned for the next five years we're going to create 1,500 units of housing in about 50 projects and was going to cost over a half a billion dollars 1,500 units compare that to 19,000 that we need over five years now let's say that number is off by a magnitude of of double it let's say we're off by that much still we're far from where we need to be so we actually do need you to some raise some of your hands to be not only housing Advocates but affordable housing developers n I'm just not on developer side but we need more development to happen uh we're not seeing enough development we have 101 cities and towns in Western Massachusetts just to give you a sense of things and even as as Peter was saying in places like pum we can find opportunity uh one project at a time they all matter and so um that's I wanted just to leave you with that kind of sense of how far we are from filling that Gap um in terms of even the opportunities that are in play today thank you Keith uh very inspiring and the inspiration behind a lot of the energy here uh John Hornick got involved with the town's housing and Sheltering committee about 15 years ago and was part of the process of getting the town meeting to create this affordable housing trust 2014 and after a few years on the trust became chair for five years and uh your Goodwill is spread all around here John please thank you Gaston um let's see okay so this is my title slide um I just want to say I really wanted to thank Keith Peter and Laura for the work that they do the challenges they face are tremendous and I will talk about at least one aspect of that but it's remarkable to me that they have the fortitude and the strength to work through all of the challenges that they face so let's talk about challenges from the public which I think is y there's my next slide okay somebody actually looked somewhat carefully about objections that come up in communities to affordable housing developer her name is Karen Einstein uh she's a sociologist at Boston University and she studied 97 cities cities and towns in Massachusetts and Connecticut and they looked at SEC secondary analysis of available data in all of these communities for a wide range of proposals overwhelmingly 14% of the thousands of participants in all the public meetings that they studied spoke in favor of these developments that means 86% spoke against it and that tells you that it's pretty difficult for a developer to come into a town and proposed a project and quite honestly oops I got to go other slide Amis was going in that direction there was highly visible loud opposition to the east Gable project that Laura mentioned when they first proposed the project there were people coming out to meetings that they held with the community meetings that the Town Council held meetings with CPA and probably one or two other meetings that I'm not remembering there was as I said loud and visible oper opposition to those as Laura suggested there was also opposition to the opposition recognizing what Karen Einstein had found we decided it was necessary to be sure that there were people speaking in favor of this project and it turns out it wasn't that hard to pull people together in the end of the day when Town Council held a public hearing the ratio of people speaking was not 71 against which is what we saw in Einstein's study but 3 to one in favor and the same was true for written comments to Town Council so that was a huge change but it didn't just happen we can't assume that because a project comes along and it's a good idea that everybody's going to support it in fact the default is many people are not going to support it and unless you organize in favor it's that project is going to go down so that's great um since then there have been other projects in amoris that have faced less opposition Valley Community Development is doing this uh 30 unit development on ball Lane in Amis I'm going to move right ahead uh as Keith mentioned wayfinders is doing this project at the old East Street school and a second site on belr Town Road that's pretty close together and not shown I don't have a slide for it is a project that would include a shelter a year- round shelter for people who are unhoused and a group of studio apartments on the same site that would appear at the old VFW Hall in the center of ammer and that project is underway the town paid for a architect narrowgate developer to do preliminary drawings for that and I'm assuming those are available on the town website yep okay thank you so all of that is great um but despite that there are significant problems here and elsewhere and I kind of briefly outline them here and the data exists to back this up um if you're a student developers will continue to build high rent apartments in Amis but there were little or no growth on campus despite the deand the demand uh I'm not going to read all of these because I want to move us along so we get to the Q&A you can take a look at them uh I guess the bottom line is important unless Town Council makes major changes the hard to be optimistic about the future uh I want to focus a little bit on older adults um we've seen projects for persons who were onh housee persons needing uh studio apartments persons needing family places it's been a long time since the house since the town did anything for older adults and yet the population composition of the town is changing to the point where over 20% of the town will be older adults of course over 50% will be people under the age of 25 because that's what we are as Tom kelman once said to me we are rapidly become a student a a community of students and empty nesters and so we need to focus on the needs for older adults and one of the things that I personally think we can do is do a development for older adults at Hickory Ridge say Hickory Ridge doesn't the town plan for a new fire station on Hickory Ridge and the answer is yes but I believe that that's a mistake and I intend to write to Town Council Members including my friend Pat um basically pointing out the following first of all about three years ago the town did a public survey of what people in the community thought should be on that site and at the very top of the list was affordable housing I don't know if anybody mentioned a fire station and I don't know where that came from in addition the town promised that there would be a plan developed forre Ridge for public comment have you seen the plan I haven't I'm sorry I can't hear you Pat okay so the only option right now is to put a fire station on that site and the town has ignored all the input that it got for affordable housing the town does a lot of gathering of public comment but doesn't seem to do a lot with it the third the third thing I want to mention is that I can read my notes Amorous firefighters have said that the site is inappropriate for a fire station that it's not properly located sure and can can I point out that Chief Nelson and his successor both walk work for the town manager and Town Hall so once the town decided there should be a fire station there whatever the firefighters who are on the ground and have to manage these issues as it goes by the boards but nonetheless that is what they said um let's see now the fire station was supposed to go to the current site where the Department of Public Works is located uh so the town is said well we're going to rebuild the Department of Public Works on that site the problem with that is that site is not large enough to accommodate the needs of the Department of Public Works so the town's going to have to find another location for part of the Department of Public Works well it would make sense to me anyway to look for a single site that would accommodate all of the needs in one place for the Department of Public Works and let the fire station go where it was going to go and use that site on east paloy lane at iory Ridge sorry West Pomroy Lane for a fire station okay for affordable housing sorry right thank you Keith that is a beautiful site and it's a site that would be great for housing in my mind especially for Elder adults or older adults so my birthday's coming up I would appreciate it if all of you in honor of my birthday would send cards and letters to Town Council saying putting the fire station there is a bad idea and what we need to put there is affordable housing so in that's one thing you can do to support affordable housing as Laura mentioned it's not easy to find property in Amerson and this is a very good property for affordable housing so there are other things you can do to support affordable housing Keith mentioned some of them there are a lot of local as well as state processes where these things get to discussed either before Town Council or before Town committees and if you don't weigh in honestly nobody else is the those problems are going to get ignored so I'd like to see you weigh in on the issue of vickory Ridge and also uh look at some of those other opportunities to speak to these issues in town government I should mention uh gon is looking at me and that reminds me I wanted to look at him because I really think the Housing Trust should become an advocate for affordable housing at the Hickory Ridge site and I will conclude with that thank you all all right well thank you for firing us up John I'm pleased to uh invite Mindy Dome who needs no introduction here I'll remind you she's been advocating for us on Beacon Hill since 2019 and before that she spent a half decade serving the community as director of the am her survival center she will be moderating our Rich Q&A thank you so much M thank you so now we know what it takes to be a champion John right can we give a round of applause for [Applause] John before I was gonna begin I was gonna say our developers are the champions but when John goes into for that advocacy pitch I'm like okay I'm writing my letter when I get of course um so I have cards that have questions on them and if you asked a question could you just raise your hand on the card so if you want to say it no should I just okay so I'm gonna go ahead and so the first one is for the different projects discussed tonight this is for the developers what was the cost per unit of housing one bedroom versus two-bedroom to build and in general what's the range or cost per unit I think that's the question so Keith do you want to go first we'll go this way no Laura if I press on this will it work how about now um so cost is something we think about without ceasing um it's been h a rocky ride over the last couple of years um in terms of cost we used to be able to bring uh the per unit price in you know under 300,000 in western Mass it was higher in in eastern Mass um I think when we got to East Gables I mentioned that escalation we kind of hit it right as things were lumber prices were peaking um and I think our per unit cost there was around 325,000 a unit and they were tiny units um at this point we are building some new construction townhouse style developments in Northampton they're coming in around they're close to 600,000 a unit uh we're doing uh an Adaptive reuse of the Northampton nursing home property that's coming in around 525 a unit um those are Studio One Two 3 and4 I don't really have a breakdown by bedroom size we look at it more as kind of the whole thing uh bedrooms tend to be cheap space to build as opposed to kind of kitchens and baths um but we are seeing just incredibly High numbers um in soft costs and especially in construction costs I don't know if anybody else has better news I no better news um um probably worst news actually um depends on on the on the projects we have projects all in that five to $600,000 range depending on the situation um well I will say though about some of those projects is you were talking about Laura mentioned before time is money some of these projects could have been done a long time ago if the both the processes and covid uh really did a did a number on a lot of our pipelines so we're we're all seeing a lot of activity right now but a lot of activity was stalled as there was a run up of prices run up of interest rates um for us we had to we were funded and then our project didn't work anymore because our budgets were broken we had to reapply um so uh there is a real cost of of of of delay um and um and it's a a wholly different world so when you look at the five billion dollar and you compare it to to the $ 1.8 billion from 2018 you say well that we're going to be able to do a lot more it's actually uh not a big of a bump as it looks like uh in the end because the cost is is risen so high here and it's even higher in Eastern Massachusetts we're talking $750,000 and more you know we get asked a lot I think people think it's affordable housing it should be affordable to build it or create it um it's kind of the flipped opposite so in order to make it affordable for the people who live in it we have to kind of frontload the cost of building it so we can't carry big mortgages and things like that we're really leaning on public subsidy and when you lean on public subsidy you get a lot of rules that you have to comply with so our new construction and renovation we're we're leaning hard on handicapped accessibility we're meeting very high energy standards we're meeting design standards so things that you wouldn't necessarily have to meet in the private SE sector in Northampton we can't use fossil fuels we didn't use fossil fuels at East Gables you know we're just kind of building in a pretty um high-tech energy efficient way that's more expensive the other thing I would mention is we're typically carrying 99-year deed restrictions so you think about a lot of money UPF front but then you have an asset that is going to be restricted through its deed for generations and so that again and part of getting to that place where you have that Leverage is part of the cost of developing affordable housing we carry huge legal costs for our work so it it's those are just some of the reasons why the numbers are shockingly high wait wait wait I would just add just quickly in terms of the amethyst Brook Apartments in pelum it's just over 600,000 a unit so similar similar price r the question was of the $600,000 how much of that is construction versus soft costs so that we can really see what the difference is between how expensive it is to build and how expensive it is to try to build yeah our our big numbers construction I think it used to be um the the soft class were higher percentage of the total budget but construction costs are so crazy I'd say 80% might be construction it depends I mean the the acquisition can also be a big number and it varies from Project to project um 75 80% uh construction you know I'm looking at new construction condos in Northampton going for 850 so it's really when you look at what's for sale on the market and you say well I can buy a four-bedroom house for 500 you know 500 it's old it's not new because if you do buy a new build you're going to pay $ 850 to a million dollars in our area it's can I also point out that one of the um one of the points I'm also hearing is opposition increases the cost so and the longer the opposition is then the time piece also then kicks up the cost so it opposition doesn't only speak to undermining a particular project it could undermine development overall in a town um and didn't mention this but what I've heard also is that um the proposed tariffs that the new president is talking about is going to further escalate costs because a lot of the supplies that these folks need in order to build housing is coming from Canada so I just I'm throwing that out there if I'm wrong please jump in but um so we're looking at that 5.1 billion sort of not being enough and it's also that 5.1 billion is sort of dedicated to specific kinds of programs and not all of those programs are the kind of housing that you all want to be building so that's the other piece of it um for the audience who's on Zoom please know that you can put your questions in the chat there's a Q&A tab did you want to ask a question okay um second question for developers what is a and we may have already answered this to some extent but I'm going to ask it you can say I've answered it already what is a barrier to development here in ammer that you can imagine a way around or through and what is that possible solution and actually I'm going to open this up to John also because you seem to have some ideas on this so I'm going to repeat it what is a barrier to development here in ammer that you can imagine a way around or through and what would that possible solution be I'll respond first I guess since you pointed to me Mindy um I think the barrier or the opposition that was faced I've got this yeah thanks um with the East Gable's development was the strongest opposition that we've seen in the last few years in amorist we beat that opposition and as I mentioned there are at least three other projects that have come up since then that generated a little bit of opposition but not nearly as much so I think the key or the way around is that once you demonstrate that you can beat that opposition then it's probably less likely to form at least in the immediate future I certainly hope that's the case um i i i as I said earlier I I'm a little disappointed in town hall for rushing ahead uh to put a fire station on a place where we should have affordable housing W without really a public process yeah one of the things that concerns me a lot is we did beat the opposition but if you look at the district that that opposition Rose from and you look at the districts for um the East Street school and even ball Lane those are districts that have more uh diversity in income maybe is one way of saying it okay so that I think that that we did get these cables I'm going to try to contain what I really would like to say about some of that opposition um I but I think that it has to do with privilege it has to do with who the abutters are I think in the neighborhoods that we're talking about where these projects are building there are more Working Class People still even in ammer you know and that makes a difference because those are the people who came forward and supported East cables we didn't get a change in the neighborhood around East cables so oh I'm Pat anybody else want yeah so I put in a plug for a 40R overlay District um it's something that the town has looked at before it's something that they use in Northampton um we've zoned multiple projects under 40R overlay it's very fast it's a byright use for affordable housing only so it doesn't entail the year-long process of the state and the locality doing the 40b um it's much more streamlined so essentially the town selects it's an overlay over some existing areas where you think you have um it's a roate for there to be more dense development if y'all can agree where that is um and then you you put that in place and developers have a really smooth straight path through the planning board not through the zoning board to get permitted so that would be a huge huge huge asset um to developers in amorist and the town gets some incentives for when the housing gets built and they pay I was goingon to say and the town get it's not just doing the district but that you get get an incentive payment yes so every time you you permit under 40R every time you establish a 40R District there's a payment made to the town right so we're developing 60 units in South Hadley in their 40R District um um so as an example a four four-story four story apartment building there uh in a commercial Plaza so it's an opportunity where you can say this is where we want housing right this is where we want denser housing in our community rather than have developers kind of kind of hunting around you're telling them this is the bullseye work here and in return you get incentive payments when we build the housing so say can you hear me yeah um so say we were looking at University Drive as a place where we're saying we would like you to build housing here is how do how do we go about say build affordable housing a yes okay I don't on University Drive I don't know if that's the intent uh right now okay we have another question did you want to ask I thought we were going to alternate Rebecca okay um housing for unhoused and low income is clearly a critical problem Workforce and middle- income housing is equally critical are there mechanism and mechanisms and solutions for this problem is anything in progress now to facilitate building this type of housing on local state or the federal levels anybody sure yeah some of the housing that we're doing right now I mentioned the project that we're doing here in ammer is 78 units of mixed income so it includes both uh Workforce units or units around 80 to 100% of Ami and then some market rate units so um the majority of it's 40 plus units are affordable and then the rest is the mix of those things so there are State programs um to support some of that not the um to provide some subsidy for particularly the workforce units the 80 to 100% of Ami units um there are programs like I mentioned before the Housing Development incentive program which is for Gateway cities only so think when you're thinking about this region think Holio chipe um Springfield to build market rate units there to diversify their housing they have a lot of more low-income units so there are there are programs like that um I know home City and um and Valley are also building home ownership projects that are um also for more more 80 to 100% of Ami households as well so there are new state programs a commonwealth Builder has a program that they're working under right now to to do that so there are um some but none of them are as Peter was saying are as big as the the tax credit program which we used today at the federal level there is uh some potential legislation that could be attached to a tax reform package that could create a federal uh home ownership uh production tax credit there's a bipartisan support for it so that could be a big boost if it works uh but we we have to see what it looks like but that could happen with tax reform um but um those are some examples of things that for more middle- income housing if you will um on the homeless front um one of the things the state has done is ask asking us increasingly to integrate that housing into rental developments um and so when you apply for low-income housing tax credits you're expected to have a percentage of units that have a preference for folks who are homeless um we are just not keeping up um with the numbers so I think also recently UMass has announced that they're going to be developing a housing plan that will include Workforce Development so we going to be seeing thankfully more development or at least ideas around how some of their unused property could be used in that way which is a really positive development you know the more housing there is at all levels the more people the more the need will be sort of addressed and then we can also focus more on uh affordable housing next question a Section 8 voucher cannot cover the costs of rent and ammer without an extra subsidy from a large apartment compx why doesn't a voucher cover a fair market rent I'm gonna let you take it Keith it's uh section8 is basically Flatline section otherwise known as a housing Choice Voucher Program uh is a rental subsidy that um um is in short supply and is basically underfunded at the federal level it's basically just on uh so it is a federal um set of policies that go into that and a federal appropriation uh so protection it is not a growing resource we are growing the Massachusetts is a unique state it has its own rental voucher called the Massachusetts rental Voucher Program uh and what they look at is to in order to set rents is they're looking at the fair market rent in the area uh most recently the Commonwealth has started to use small area fair market rents which are looking at uh rents in the um the ZIP code rather than in the metropolitan statistical area which helps it increases the rent capability uh but what we've seen is uh you're asking why so that there's the reason why the the vouchers are the way they are they're looking at you know kind of a an an understanding of the rent by looking at what's already being rented out there even in the zip code it may not be enough but the asking prices are factoring in increased cost for owners right and increased desire to make money market rate hous people are in it to make money right so they are and they have to cover their costs and what we have seen whether you're affordable or market rate is a run up in expenses to operate housing today right Insurance costs uh have have doubled in some cases for us and they continue to grow uh op other operating cost utilities uh staff to operate the properties all those things have increased um those things get passed on to renters by increased rents and so we have seen over during the pandemic what was interesting here in our region is that we saw rents steadily Rise um said what's what's so interesting about that well if you look at a place like Boston um you saw and and other large Metro areas you saw rents actually drop during the pandemic and then go back up they're still they're high but there was but not here we saw steady rises in increases in rents uh and those are haven't been coming down so and at the same time we have um this challenge with um kind of low to moderate incomes uh that are not keeping up so the rental vouchers are um are kind of um our solution but they don't get us all the way there because of the way they the rents are calculated and they're not being funded at the level that we need to my hope would be there's a a budget that um repon will be uhu looking at closely and there is an increase in the Massachusetts rental voucher program but it's really just treading water for that program right now covering the increased cost that are anticipated there's not going to be that many new vouchers we need to grow that program because the federal government isn't growing it to be able to create more affordable uh Mobility options for people with those vouchers and create and and to give to developers as well to create what we know call Project based units where we have that affordability in the unit uh that people can um Can Avail themselves of I just want to add something to what Keith said um two or three years ago I was in touch with the amoris Housing Authority which manages the voucher program in ammer and actually this area and they would have so many vouchers to give out each year and typically more than 50% of those vouchers were unused because people could not find an affordable rental in ammer even having the voucher so that's the consequence of what Keith is talking about that people seeking places even though the vouchers are theoretically available simply can't find a place that will accept the voucher so there could be a bright spot on the horizon so one of the reason so the fair market rent is an an established amount if you have a voucher and you want to rent a two-bedroom apartment and the State and fed say the fair market rent is400 you can't rent an apartment for more than that so people can't find apartments at that cost in ammer because they're more expensive um part of that is happening because ammer is in the Springfield um statistical metropolitan area so it's grouped in with a bunch of hamton County towns that are larger and so it it it seems to artificially depress those rents relative to actual rents in ammer and had Northampton this kind of tear up here I'm hearing they're going to have a new MSA for our region do you know anything about that I heard that also but I'm not sure what happens to these Federal designations in this new climate so we'll see I mean I'm being very honest right like something might have been very um we might have had a different way to look at that two months ago or six months ago now I'm not sure it would have been it would have helped yeah and the the the um the Commonwealth has tried to increase the the rents that it can offer through their program so it's 100 110% of fair market rent now uh they tried to increase it to 120% of fair market rent but it was too costly they didn't have enough money um so they had to pull that back but um the the John's point is is important though there's not enough units that's where we need to be developing more unit units that are are affordable for people even even with the voucher people are searching and sometimes have to return it wanted to say something but I'm also moderating so I really can't say anything say it well I wanted to say that also another thing that I heard with the Housing Authority is in Amerson throughout the state is that there were these vacant units that we kept hearing about that were in housing unit um buildings and when they did some digging to find out well why were they standing vacant when there were people who needed those units it was mostly Personnel issues on the housing authorities place that they didn't have enough maintenance people to actually clean up the units between tenants to move people in which is just mindboggling that that would happen but the bond does have some money for housing authorities specifically around these issues because I think it was just so terribly embarrassing that there were actually vacant units because they couldn't get cleaned up okay enough of mending although then you gave me this one and this is I think may be for me um but I'm going to let panelists talk first and Bash away and then I'll talk how do we move the real estate transfer fee forward anybody want to take it so you may know that amar's last uh session had a home rule for transfer fee um which didn't come out of committee um positively there were some efforts on the housing bond to try to get a transfer fee the governor actually put it in her bond it did not pass the legislature um and I think we have to keep trying we have to keep begging that we need money for it and we we need to launch a very large support for it because there is a large well-funded opposition for it in the eastern part of the state that's my any thoughts I add to that briefly and that is the Joe Comerford and her staff worked tirelessly to try to get that uh housing built past or added to whatever the bond Bill and they weren't able to do it I thought they did a great job but at the end of the day the developer Community was much stronger in opposing it will that change I hope it will the private developer Community yeah well and you know it's really um Lots as you're saying there well organized uh opposition well-funded opposition and so um I think um a Statewide campaign needs to happen in order to to overcome that yeah I agree Statewide campaign meeting also in lots of towns so I think one of the things that people in ammer can do is contact the people that you know your friends your family your loved ones who live in other towns in Massachusetts and start make start growing this movement um the some of you may know that bill filing deadline in the legislature for this session was last Friday I think there were a couple of bills filed around a transfer fee and there'll be more there'll be home rules so we'll see it still come up and you may know that the um biggest town that wants a transfer fee was Boston and it was denied too so um it's not an East West thing it's a money no money thing so okay any other thoughts oh so oh still more okay how much more does it cost to build an amoris versus other communities because of local regulations no I've worked on a couple of projects when I was with wayfinders in ammeron there's not any significant obstacles and amers that don't also exist in some of the other communities here so I'd say say none um I think it's hard to quantify I would argue that because ammer is very process oriented there is a Time cost um and I don't know exactly what that is it's not unique to ammer um but this is the most process heavy place I've ever developed um we see that consistently whether there's opposition or not um and it just adds time and time is money so Laura can I follow up and ask you a question would that 40R overlay address that issue it would help I mean it it would help because you would be taking a different zoning path that's generally more streamlined and you'd be going to the planning board when you do a 40b you're going to the zoning board and it always feels odd they don't do it very often it's just an odd situation for everybody in the room um whereas if you're going before a planning board they're very fasil and used to doing site plan review so if you can shift where it goes it it's a smoother ride how feasible is modular to reduce costs I love these questions I'm actually working on a a project in East Hampton right now it's 96 units uh five stories on a steel Podium and when we started on this project and it's a very rectangular building so it was originally conceptualized for modular construction and our construction manager priced it out as stick built as modular and as panelized construction and I'll explain panelized in a moment and it turned out that panelized was the U uh most cost-effective option there so modular obviously they assemble almost entire apartments or modules and they have a crane that delivers them to the site and in this case would be on top of a steel Podium and with panelize they uh Factory build entire panels of the building which have the insulation the windows uh conduit in the walls a lot of the electrical work already done those are built in a factory and then brought to the site and assembled on the site and and so I do think that um panelized construction has some but both have uh options for reducing cost and helping what we learned was that at 96 units which is big for our region that wasn't enough scale to really make modular work that uh our construction manager told us that it had to be up around 200 units to really make that work and we don't have too many of projects here um in the panelized construction um right now we're talking to a company that builds these panels in a factory in Baltimore Maryland um so it's you know even with that cost still reasonable but that same company is building a plant in uh Windsor Connecticut so that may help uh reduce the cost again in the future so um interestingly enough I had a conversation about this East Hampton project with the Carpenters Union just last week and when they learned that we were planning on building panelized construction their View was hey look we're just looking for opportunities for our I I had expected some push back from them on that point and they said you know you're not going to get any fight from us on this we see that that may be one of the futures for building housing not just affordable housing and we want to help facilitate it and we want to find opportunities for our members so uh they were very encouraging to us and that was that was really good to hear great to hear any other thoughts no I just going to ask Peter he's talking about doing a multif family development that's um so it may be different if you're looking at building you know town homes or uh you know single scattered site units it's it's hard to answer the question directly but I think Peter's got the best experience right there that on a multi family development I think what's also interesting is depending on the scale that's going to that's going to affect what kind of product you can use and that will ultimately affect the price per unit so the more affordable units you build probably the biggest bang for your buck um in terms of Bill that may have been obvious but sorry um what are your favorite developments in the region and the best local policies I don't know who's asking these questions but you guys are asking Rockstar questions so this is like you know like what's your favorite development and we won't take offense when it's not amorist if it's not amorist we want to know and what's your favorite local policies Laura I'm going to hit you what local policies local policies and your favorite local development yeah I'm I'm gonna hit the 40R again that's my favorite local policy um it's a Statewide tool but it's applied locally um one of my very favorite projects is one of Peters um it's l 155 in Northampton because I think it's a stunning building and a great location um I've always liked Butternut Farm which was designed and built by wayfinders um which is here in ammer because it fits in a rural community so well um it looks like a series of kind of connected out buildings and you know it's not a big box at all so those are those are some of my favorites actually in the area Peter Well in terms of um local policies I would go with the community preservation act funds um you know as you know the there's three buckets that they can put money into um historic preservation open space and affordable housing and I found that most communities have the hardest time putting it into affordable housing development because with the other sources they they make a grant and the money gets spent right away whereas we come to them and say you we we want your money but it's really not going to be needed for like two or three years until the the housing is actually built but it's still really important money I can't stress how important it is that you know the town steps up and you know Awards money to a project and and sends the right signals to the folks in the state um and so that's my favorite policy and I I would agree with Laura the live 155 building Urban infill Development in downtown Northampton and uh it kind of fits really well in in that location if I'm not mistaken wasn't the pelum project partially funded by CPA money from the town of P oh oh absolutely yeah that was important and Northampton and ammer have put CPA money into into projects and that's that's critical uh from a I don't know if it's a policy but along the same lines of CPA Municipal Housing Trust any community that has indal Housing Trust that has money in it um that's great there are a lot of them that don't have money in them so any place that has it that has money in it they think can add to um the um the sources for a project is great um I'm going to give a shout out to an Adaptive reuse by home city um I'm gonna get the what's the name of the school again Elias Bing School uh terrific job there in Springfield um uh redeveloping that school into housing after a big hurricane of hurricane tornado that came through that Community uh a terrific um adaptive reuse there that but they maintain the gym I can't I can't get over how you maintain the gym there uh which is uh just a stunning project so add that to the list so new construction is always nice to build but it's also when you can make something new out of uh something old thank you I'm gonna pass the microphone back to you to finish us up okay e so is the question how do you change the planning board's decision question is what are other zoning regulations that would help spur development of affordable housing in Ams for seniors specifically well I I think it's a it's a it should no zoning is often done without um thought to um to actual that the challenges development in particularly financing development so I was hearing you say let's up zone so you have you can do two unit homes maybe that maybe there's financing out there for that not for affordable um that we're GNA just going to do a two unit home here or there U so I think really thinking about and one of the things that we're looking at right now is uh we're doing a analysis of all the developable land in in western Mass to look at where are the what are the development opportunities that are kind of have at Community scale like you're talking about that are maybe not the 20 unit building uh and what would be the financing tools that we would need to build it because they don't exist today so if you went to to the hlc uh executive office of Housing and liberal communities or Mass Housing and look for a program could does it does it have a a match if it doesn't have a match it's not going to be built but at least not affordably anyway you might be able to build it on a market rate basis but that's going to be a challenge so I think really understanding deel what developers need which is the financing and if if you're looking at affordable it's going to be what are the subsidies that line up with what you want to see if they don't exist that doesn't mean they can't exist um and so there's a lot of talk about there's a term of our right now being used called missing middle housing it's both looking at smaller kind of community scale development anywhere from you know two to eight eight plexes um and uh even you know smaller apartment buildings 10 units um but there's really not financing for that today uh not affordably anyway so the state could create a program around that and it could be again for more middle inome people from 80 to 120% of Ami again no program exists today that doesn't mean it couldn't if we were able to show that there's a need for it and amers can't go alone that's to be a whole kind of effort Statewide that we we're going to say we want to create that kind of Housing and we need to to cap create the capital for uh in the next Bond bill or in before the next Bond Bill happens so that's some of the work we're doing now to analyze the opportunity in our region and try to partner with other regions to see if we can Advance something like that but I think um zoning on its own is helpful but um if you Zone something that can't be financed it won't be help before we leave sadly I want to make a comment about the 800 pound gorilla immediately to our North and that is the University of Massachusetts uh a couple of people sent to me and somebody mentioned this evening that the university has a great new public plan that would help to expand housing on campus now I saw a plan like that I think it was six or seven years ago and you all may also have seen that plan do you know what happened with that plan exactly nothing thanks Pat so I can't say I'm optimistic about seeing a new plant I wish I could be I think we are desperately in need of more housing on the UMass campus they severely restricted housing for families on the campus and they didn't add much in the way of graduate student housing to replace the units that they also killed there so the university needs to do a lot more more than it's doing and we need to apply some public pressure to the university hopefully to get them to move in the right direction I thought you were going to say when you said to the north you were going to talk about the Housing Development that's proposed for Leon but because but that's just me I can I just say Al and then I'm gonna give it to you guys speak um you said something Kei that I really want to underscore Amorous can't go It Alone the issues and the challenges that we have are not really unique many communities have it but the way to build public pressure is to link arms with other communities that are also facing it because alone it we get dismissed so but not just housing across the board with every policy and the only times we we are successful is when we link arms so I really I just wanted to underscore that because I think that's really important and that means linking arms with not only other rural communities but also the Gateway cities that are in our region because we're all facing This Together gueston wait guess can I just jump in really quick going off the linking arms metaphor um and this is related specifically to the Housing Trust um we in our new strategic plan have um identified three subcommittee areas that we have split into one is again education one is development and one is financing and our hope is that there will be more Community involvement in our subcommittee meetings um so if you are interested in you know furthering your advocacy and support for affordable housing in amist and Beyond um you can check out the Housing Trust website would have all those subcommittee meetings listed and they are all available to join on Zoom well thank you everybody I mean my main thanks is that all of you in this room showed up of course thank you to those on Zoom but it's really wonderful to have a community experience um thank you Rebecca League of Women Voters pulling us together and I want to give a shout out to Greg rain who is an assistant Town developer and uh housing aici who really brings a lot of uh energy to what we're doing on the Housing Trust thank you to the developers and uh John for uh pulling us together cheers Mindy thank you so [Applause] much for