I'm going to call the meeting to order. It's now 7:01 and thank you everybody for coming in. I had no idea what the rain was going to do. It's like all of a sudden as I'm looking out there and it's like, oh wow,
we could just Well, all I know is that we needed the rain and it's going to be nice and cool when we get out of here. So, um I we had I'm going to say a little bit of a a meet and greet. So, just to go ahead and for general
business, everybody got a copy of the agenda. Does anybody have any type of corrections or uh edits? This is the affordable housing committee. So, or is it a joint? Is it both? Is it a joint? Well, we're running the meeting and it's
a joint meeting, but it's going to be it's going to be us. So, okay. The affordable housing committee. Yeah. You have to read that paragraph at the front. Oh, yes I do. Thank you. All right. This meeting of the air affordable
housing committee will be held in person at the location provided on this notice. Members of the public are welcome to attend this in-person meeting. Please note that while an option for remote attendance and/or participation is being provided as a courtesy to the
public, the meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcasts unless otherwise required by law. Members of the public with particular interest in the specific item on this agenda should make plans for
in-person versus virtual attendance accordingly. Zoom information for this meeting can be obtained by contacting Cindy Knox, the IT manager at itair.mma. us or call 978-772-8220 extension123
or Nisha Hershey, community development program manager at ahersair.mma. us or call 978-772-8220 extension142 prior to the meeting. So, thank you everybody. Thanks, Ken. All right. So, again, um, go general
business. Any changes to the agenda? All right. So, um, on the members of the affordable housing committee, can I hear a motion to make a motion to approve the agenda as written? Second. Right. And all in favor? I I.
You got it. Okay. So, introduction of the committee and board members. Um, I'm the one with the biggest mouth sometimes. So, I'll go ahead and say Janet Pradas. I've been at town since 1995. Um, as I was introducing myself to
another board last week, um, I started working and helping out over at St. Mary's Church. That led me to meet individuals who got me involved with Air um, housing authority, with Air Housing Authority. I got put on to the CPC,
which is the community preservation committee. And with that, because of working with housing and the CPC, I was introduced to Alicia um and working on housing. So, I was part of the master plan uh group for um the housing and
then we continued on with the housing committee and such. And now you guys have stuck with me. So, that's pretty much my background. I am a 911 dispatcher over at the town and I work the midnight shift. So that's why
I talk so fast sometimes. Moving to my left. Hi, I'm Cindy Lavin and um I've lived in town for almost 37 years, which still doesn't make me a native. Um
um I'm on the library board. I worked at the library for quite a number of years. Um, and right now I run stone soup kitchen food pantry and meals program and I'm a local troublemaker I guess.
We need those. Good evening. My name is Jake Driscoll. Um, I've lived in town for most of my life. I'm currently on the uh call department here for the fire department in town and uh most of my time has been spent going through the fire academy in Stow. I look forward to working with you
all. Hi, I'm Colleen Kaser. Um I have lived in town for four years, but my husband's family has been here for a lot longer and so very familiar with the town even before we moved here. Um I serve on the
community preservation committee. Um, and I'm a faculty member at Pine Manor College in Chesn Hill. I'm Sean Copelan. I'm um currently the chair of the Air Select Board. Um, I've been in air, lived in there for almost
two years. Um, prior to that I was in Shirley for a couple years. Um, but I did grow up on Fort Deon, so quite familiar with air. I went through the air school system. Um, graduated from Air High School. Um, currently I work as a social worker. Um,
which was my interest in this board is, um, the social work aspect of it. Um, I work for the Department of Children and Families as an ongoing um, worker um, at the Lemonster office. My name is Jeff Tillson. I will be almost eight years Thanksgiving I think
um, here living in air. My wife and I chose to move here after I spent a lot of time visiting folks on sandy pond. and discovered that, you know, my family was 50 years in a town closer to Boston and this is a much nicer place to live. Um, currently, uh, serving as a member
and chair of the planning board, uh, here in town. My interest in, um, housing stems from that. How can the different boards, the different efforts that are taking place in town uh work
in a fashion that supports air becoming a one maintaining this wonderful place to live statue? My name is Ken Diskin. I'm a member of the planning board in town, vice chair served with Jeff on the planning board. I've lived in town since 2002. I guess
it's about I don't know 18 19 years. In the first, I guess 15 of those years, I was strictly a commuter. I came home, went to work, came home, went to work. And since I retired six years ago, I've taken more of an interest in being
involved in the town and joined the affordable housing committee because I would like to have a vision, I guess, like the rest of us at the table, that we could make a difference and try to find a way to get some affordable housing in town. I think that's a a great goal. not sure how we're going to
get there. The planning board gives us an ability to see projects that are coming and to, you know, work together to try to make better projects that are are, you know, available to the town and encourage developers to uh, you know, do the right thing through our rules and regulations. But the long and short of
it is, I'm glad to be here. It's a pleasure sitting at the table with folks like yourself and hope and get something done. Hi, good evening. I'm Jennifer Pale and I have been in air probably about nine years, but I've school choiced my kids
um since preschool and my oldest is 16 and I have a 13-year-old as well. I am currently a case manager and I work with homeless families that are currently in Massachusetts EA emergency shelter system and um I work with the families
on efforts towards rehousing um giving you know making sure they have a safe stable place giving case management and help identifying affordable housing and getting them kind of to you know the next step. And the reason why I was interested in working um you know along
with the rest of you with affordable housing and stuff like that is because I think that there's a whole another vulnerable population that kind of um has needs that are going unmet. Um you know for many households whether it's a single parent household or a two family
household they're only one paycheck away from crisis. And um I think that you know through collaboration and working together with everybody we can really educate you know the community on you know the different types of affordable housing that are out there and you know
really meet the needs of a population who you know could really benefit and use it. True. Me we could do it for you. Ron
buy a house. True. Well, that's it. I'm Ron Morrison. I'm part owner with my partner Pat Bagy Latimer. Some of you may know her uh at the real estate
company down the street here at MA Real Estate Center. We started that company in 1998 under a different name of erra Morrison. Then we shuffled off and turned into ReMax and uh we decided to grow off and
become an independent and draw up all the franchise fees. uh we spend most of our day uh which is fun promoting the town uh with anybody who will listen to us and as the only real estate company
in air uh fortunately for everybody we are very very positive about the town and it's a great place to live which I live here uh and a good place to work and we sit right in the middle of the center so you can't get away with
anything we see here can't walk by without Say hi. You want to know what's happening? Just call. We'll tell you. I'm Alicia Hersy and I work in the community and economic development department in the town of Air. I started
out um a good nine years ago and uh was working only 15 hours a week and mostly doing um community development grants, rehab programs, and things like that. And now I'm full-time. And when we did the um master plan, we really took a
deep dive into housing. And so we came up with a number of goals and we've done a great job of meeting a lot of those goals. And these two committees are part of those goals and where we're going with housing and we're kind of growing with the state. The state is really
growing with a very different view on housing and what we need to do on housing. And I think that, you know, we're just keeping up with everything. And I I think it's wonderful to have everybody here. And it's great to have the support and the vision from the
community. And every time I've gone out to the community or Allan and I have gone out to the community and the first thing that people said at the master plan, they just said, "We want to hear the same. We love the diversity. We love the ethnic and e economic diversity and
we want to make sure that happens. And so that became one of the the statement the mission statement of um the master plan. And so this is kind of growing out of all that. And it's great to be here with everybody. Well, it's true. Um one good thing is we
do have a nice diverse group here. So with that, um, we're going to be looking upon everybody for, you know, their expertise within their one little section. Um, I used to always get upset with my ex-husband who would go ahead and tell me everybody's ignorant on
something. Everybody's smart on something. So, there's going to be things that I'm not going to have an answer for. There's going to be things that I'm going to be looking to everybody, you know, for saying, "Okay, great. This is what's happening in this neck of the woods. This is what, you know, is happening here." One good thing is we do have Alicia. Okay, I do have to
put in a you know kudos for it because it there are so many committees here in town that doesn't have somebody here in town hall to go ahead and do all this type of paperwork and everything. So, thank you. All right, we do appreciate
that. And then moving as well, I commuted to Cambridge every day for 22 years from here. And with that, I didn't tell people about air because I wanted this to be my little secret because it was a great place to live. And uh and
then all of a sudden, people started coming from Arlington and places like that. Then it's like, okay, the word is out. Don't look at me. He was born in he was actually born in Arlington. That's true. It's like I'm just an Arlington visitor pretty regularly. surprising
the number of people. This is surprising how people are old neighborhoods out here. Yes, there are. Well, one good thing about this group here is um everybody that we're still trying to find our way. Um we've got the affordable housing committee that you
know started with the master plan. We wanted to know that we wanted to build the housing trust so that we could have funds specifically for housing issues either rental assistance or um working on development working to rehab a house
you know something like that so that we can move forward and with that it's now that next branch. So these types of joint meetings are going to be good, but you all are going to end up separating and you know getting your own chair,
getting your vice chair and and such somebody you know a clerk to to do the minutes because it all has to be open meeting. So when you have your next meeting and again it's not like you know I'm going to set you off and then you'll just go or we're not just going to go
ahead and do that. it's more of we'll be working together but then also you'll have your own um independence you know your own um entity itself so I think this going to be good because when we get together this our educational series
that we can go ahead and do and you're right we need to educate the town because you know when I'm starting to talk to people about affordable housing you know you've got to make sure that this is housing that's affordable don't think about it as being you know oh giz
like projects in Boston, projects in, you know, Springfield. I mean, these are things that have happened in the past, but as some of us have been at, you know, some of the other um seminars that we've gone to. No, it it's now more of trying to find, you know, housing units
that are, you know, a community to be able to go ahead and be part of the community, find developers that want to continue that community oriented, um, you know, building and working with the community. So, I think that that works out really good. So, in doing so with
that, like I said, I don't want to keep everybody, you know, because I can go on and on. Everybody's got a new binder. You guys got your air affordable housing trust binder and we have our binders. I know. I know. As you can tell, I add
some stuff, but then I got everything else in folders. Um right now what we have inside um the the binders for you all is um just definitions but we will be adding more stuff like um again one of the items on
the agenda is you know I we always get some sort of update from Ron of what's going on in town for the for housing and such and um with that this is good but like we'll be giving you the master plan information about housing. Um we're
trying to get um like say copies and so they're colored so that they but um all this stuff ne nevertheless is online. The housing production plan is now online um in Boston. Alicia's
getting a promo copy done for us so that we'll have that to be able to be placed inside here instead of just copying it so it's black and white, you know, whatever. It's always good to see color maps so that you know really what you're looking at and such. So, put, you know, like I say, stuff inside here. I have a
file cabinet that has all, you know, my stuff. Um, trying to think on the definitions that we do have um in in here. You guys um have two sets of definitions. One is just a nice little
synopsis and for the housing committee members I don't know the um is this for the committee or this is for the committee because we already you already have Okay. All right.
So it's you guys correct and you and me. All right. And because we those are new ones. That's these are new. These are new. Uhhuh. Yeah, because again going to all these seminars and everything, it's like, oh, this is pretty interesting because a lot of them of, you know, the
mass rental voucher programs, you know, when they give you those abbreviations and everything, it's like, okay, um, what's a 501c3? You know, so those are always, like I said, good to have because, believe me, you're going to see a lot of buzzwords, right? And then I believe I'm going to
have you guys take one of these. This is what was handed out at the fall town meeting to give you an idea, you know, with regards to the housing trust. Um, do I have
good? Okay. Yeah, we just put it in there. Hi. And this was this was developed by um like I say we had all the different texts and everything and Sarah Wy you know went
ahead and developed this for us. So with that it was it was good because again a lot of people within town want to see the diversity continue. They want to see um you know again housing available.
It's more of the education of how that's going to be able to happen and what type of housings can happen. So, I wanted to make sure everybody had that. Um, anything else you want to bring up on the on the folder, the binder?
No. Um, one of the things that the affordable housing trust will get together and they'll start deciding what the rules and their protocol are they get their board together as far as chair and everything like that. So, um, before the evening's out, we should probably
talk about schedules and what people think is good. Yeah, we meet every third Friday. Yes. Of the month in the daytime, though we are thinking about because Janet's having her event at some point. Um, so we need
it usually between 10 and 11 um on Fridays, third Fridays. And I I want the trust to think about whether they want to come to some of the committee meetings for a while or whether they want to set up the trust and start setting up and setting you know um
liking on it's not guidelines or bylaws or we've got the policies procedures policies and procedures and voting in the chair and that sort of thing. So at the end we should take a moment and talk about what people think or maybe you
just want to come to the next house affordable housing committee meeting and if you prefer evenings we'll do evenings for a while. Um so we'll talk about that or just do people want to throw that out and do that right now. We could do it at the end at um
yeah when we do the setup very good. Okay. Um, I think that would work out well. All right. So, again, you've got your binder. You're going to be filling stuff up with it, especially as you're going through some of the um education
seminars and we'll get you some of the other documents that again are online and um to make sure everybody has access to say. I'm going to move on because I'm going to ask Ron. All right. Give us the scoop of what's going on in air.
I have a handout. They didn't know how many people were going to be here. So, 10,000. That doesn't quite look like 10,000. Close. Did I say 14? Oh, I have this conversation.
I just want to see what the numbers are. It did it a little bit differently this time in that you wanted a 5minut presentation. Absolutely impossible. So, I gave you three hours worth of
reading. My five minutes are No, it's not. I just wish my exercises went that way. Go ahead. I just threw a few facts together that you may or may not know. Some interesting, at least to, you know, a
real estate person, they're interesting. I can't imagine who else would be interested in them. But um if you look at the state of Massachusetts, the you know, it's no big surprise that Boston has the highest average rentals
uh in the in the state at 34 over 3,400 and uh Poloke would be the place to go, I guess, at 985 for an average. No. Doesn't Holy have a sister city or something?
Yeah. Um I think it's over in Sweden. It's in Europe somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. Uh interestingly enough, Gardner, Fitchburg, and Lemonster are on the list of top 10 most affordable communities in Massachusetts, which I found surprising
quite frankly. Um but they're on there. They're on the top 10. Um, I did a count of how many buildings we have, not units, not rental units, but buildings. Some of these buildings have 20 units in them, others have two,
you know, that type of thing. Um, we have 357 in the town, rental buildings, and of those, 198 people who own them do not live in those. Uh, so that's a rather high percentage. And when you
think about what some of the other towns look like, I think it's something like 55% or so. Um, of those buildings, 209 are two family dwellings, 45 are three family,
65 are 4 to eight families um in size, and only eight or nine units or bigger. And then there's 30 different lots in the town that have multiple buildings. So there might be two houses
on it where they're each unit surrendered just one and one. uh you know various places like that. There are 30 of those. So the whole thing comes to 357. Was real interesting that not much has
happened in air as far as a rental inventory being added or built. I shouldn't say built. I'm sure there's been some added or rehabs. But as far as new buildings since 2000, there's only been three buildings added. Okay. which
is almost nothing really. And the vast majority, as you can see, there are even three buildings out there that were built in the 1700s that are part of the renting inventory. And you can see the numbers there. 169
were built between 1900 and 1950. And of those, 45% of those buildings were built in the 1940s. And the vast majority of those are down at Devon's Crest which was uh just
recently uh sold uh by Mr. Taji and he sold something in the order of I think it was 88 units total if you to believe the registry of deeds and it was
bought by two two New Hampshire-based LLC's for 11,600,000 which comes out to about 31,000 and change per unit, which is not a bad deal really. Rents
down there in that neighborhood for those buildings run as high as 1,400 a month uh and as low as 800 some cases. He's purchasing cash and they're usually full cash. Looking at the tax bill for a rental
building in town, the average is six just over 6,000. And for the first quarter of 2021, the average air rent increased by 39% over the previous year's similar
uh time period. That's a rather large jump. Yeah. Uh we still are relatively at the bottom of the list, however, as far as the cost of the rentals in town. Visa be the other towns that surround us.
A Westford for instance, the current inventory in Westford, the average rental per month is $3,900. Can I ask a quick question? Yes. First quarter of 2020, the average rate of rent increased by 39% over the same period in 2020. Every single rental unit
in town went up 40%. No, overall the overall increase in value is it the ones that have over the aggregate cost? Yeah, I I guess I understand the you add up all the rentals. Yeah. Costs,
the monthly rent being paid in, right? And then you compare this past quarter to the previous year. 39 There was 39% more money. I don't know if it was all collected, but there
was 39% higher rents of the rents that turned over. No, of those available. of the available rentals. Available rentals. As an example, as an example, if you had 10 units last year to rent and they rented for
$1,000 a piece during that quarter on average, maybe some are eight, some are 12. And this year, the same 10 units came up again for $1,390, right? A piece on average. That's it. So, it's a it's a it's a snapshot of what just an
overall snapshot and it does include also new new rental units being brought to the market. So if a person buys a two family and flips it and puts it out on the market for rent as being an improved building, it would include anything that was rented.
Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Uh and when you look at the average cost per square foot per month, u it's at $182 per square foot is what people are paying on average to rent an air. So you
just, you know, add up the square footage, multiply by 1.82, and you get what the rent is. Now, that's the highest level that we've had uh for the last 5 years, which is as far back as I went. I didn't go back any
further than that. So you know just a few interesting uh as you can see the average monthly of number 10 the average monthly rent in air jumped 15 to 1522
on average. Now there are some that have rented as high as 2900. We had a a single family on Koolage Avenue that we Koolage a part of Washington that we rented for 2900.
That was the highest one. So this average is based upon what size you call sizes. It's strictly an average strictly an average and that represents a 4% only a 4% jump.
I don't understand the um correlation between number eight and number 10. The first quarter they went up 39% right over a year. the aggregate the overall aggregate rentals
but in number 10 4%. Well, that's the second quarter. Oh, okay. Yeah. The second quarter went up 4%. Okay. The first quarter went up 39%. So, basically, it's flattening out as far as increases.
Okay. That's that's why I was was I I wondered if it's still higher, but it's not as high of a percentage jump. All right. So, we're flattening back out is what you're saying at least for now. Okay. You get a sense why?
Um well, the profile of somebody coming into here, which we have in the office, I was going to bring that. It's real interesting. We have a breakdown as to the percentages of personalities of people that come to here and their financial ability and all that kind of
thing. which is very good for targeting marketing and that um and you know it's just that the people that are coming to the town they can't afford to pay a whole lot more. They're not going to West. Well, they
may be going to Westford first, hitting the $39,000 $3,900 number and saying, "Well, gee, I don't know. It's kind of expensive here, isn't it?" And, you know, they're moving a few miles this way and they're finding that it's more affordable within their range.
Uh, Shirley and Air are pretty close. So, that when we say air, it's almost always Shirley with it quite frankly. Uh the average threebedroom rental rate right at the moment is running about $774
per bedroom, which is a way that most people except real estate agents don't look at. How many bedrooms do you want? I'd like three. Well, that'll be 774 per bedroom. Yeah. And it won't matter what size the
bedroom is, you know, it will be 774. Ron, as part of that um demographic um the snapshot that you have, do you know for people renting in air on average what people are spending what portion of their salary they're spending on rent?
About 42%. It's about at the moment it's about 42%. Used to be 25%. Right, which is more in line with what it should be. National Association of Realtors is are their guidelines are now 50%.
So half of someone's income, it's okay to qualify them. Oh, to qualify them. Yeah. But thinking that you shouldn't be paying that doing it. The only thing holding back uh well, there's a few things, but one of one of the things that keeps that number where
it is is that most people, most landlords don't want to rent to two or three mixed adults, if you will. If they would do that, that number would change, you know, but people just generally
won't do that. Um, another interesting satellite, 95% of all of the rentals in town now no longer accept pets. So, Wow. 95. Yeah. The uh Oldtown, is it Oldtown? I think it is. Or
right down here on the Rotary. They're one of the few places that still accepts pets and so therefore there are more dogs there than humans. Sometimes we think uh we were thinking actually of setting up a new website that says
apartments for dogs that accept humans. It's a little kind of catchy. The next sheet down is question which one? Um, number four, uh, you're talking about the absentee landlord. Do
you have any sense? How many of those absentees? I I know they don't live in that building, but 84 of them live in here. Okay, I do have those. I just did. Okay, I was going to put that on there, but
this is only a 5minute presentation. That's what I was watching. Um, never ask me to present. You got to be kidding. But this is how
we find out all this information. The next sheet is the Excel spreadsheet and the red are the averages. The one bedrooms are and these are all of the uh this is information from multiple
listing. So, this is not 100% of the information. It's not going to be there, but it's about 80% of it. Uh, if it were sales, it would be about 95% of it. But rentals, there are still quite a few landlords that rent their own places.
There are still some larger buildings that use their own staff, uh, and they don't put it in multiple listing, but it does, you know, it does give you a pretty good idea of the ballpark. So a onebedroom is running about 1,93
just just under,00 and as you flip through this you can see that uh the two bedrooms are 1507 the three bedrooms are 2233 and the four bedrooms are 2550.
And the interesting thing, it's like square footage. When you build a house, uh, as you go, uh, as as the house gets bigger or the apartment gets bigger, the cost uh, per bedroom goes down. That's normal. That's the way those
numbers are before. Took me about 8 years to figure that out. The next chart is just a comparison of the um for sale prices. These are the
top chart top section are the for sale averages. So Boxboro tops things out. The average sale in Boxboro is now 1.1 million. Uh that's an average 4bedroom house 2800
ft 2 and 1 half baths. The typical house that in air would cost somewhere around 66 650 is 1.1 million in box. As you look at the numbers, Actton has gone a little bit crazy. They're now at 982.
Uh acts as a school system that works together. Very popular region. Uh of course people have to, you know, earn quite an income in order to pay for those types of housing. Chumsford next to lol is now getting up there at 768.
Fitchburg, which used to be about 125,000 four or five years ago, is now 335. 335 was kind of like a relatively expensive single family 5 years ago.
It's now at the bottom of the run. And Westford, surprisingly, Westford's cooled off. Westford's down. it down to 721. Um, not sure what's going on there, but it's now 721. It actually was higher
last year. Then you have the average rent down below that. And these are available inventory. Okay, the average of what is for sale, not what is sold. Do you see the market growing?
So, the market growing. Cool. Cool. Well, I don't know. Like right now on the rental market in air, if you went if you walk into the office and said, "I need a rental." In the whole town, there is one
rental available on the market. That's it. Now, that doesn't mean that they're on some landlord someplace renting their own place, but I will guarantee you it's less than 10 uh in the whole town because again, the multiple listing
service usually represents about 80% of the rentals in any given town. So, obviously, you know, 10 would be a high number if there's actually nine mails up there. So, that's one thing that keeps prices up. If there's one loaf of bread
in the store and somebody comes in looking for wheat bread and all there is is white bread, you either buy the white bread or you don't eat it. Right? So that's the situation. There's the rental. Would you like it? It's $1,200.
It's at 48 Washington Street. It's a rehabbed house. It was, you know, not such a nice house. Fortunately, Kevin Baker reped it. Uh, and it's certainly better than it used to be. And he's
getting 1,200 for a one-bedroom unit. Uh, three rooms, one bedroom, 600 square ft. And that's it. There's nothing else there. The the last two uh handouts, these two here. One is the if you look
at the top, you'll see the difference. One is is rental. It says residential rentals at the top and the other one is single families, condominiums and multif family sales
and it goes back five years. At the back of each sheet are the first two quarters of this year. So it is a it's complete five years plus two quarters of this year.
Okay. Um, and you can you can follow the rental increases uh very easily. You can follow the square footage costs, how many listings were taken. Again, these aren't just our
office numbers. These are 2,000 agents working in the multiple listing service. Now, obviously, all 2,000 don't work in air. Uh but the ones that do this would include anything that they not only did we list but so did they. And you know
it's pretty steady. It's really not cool. If you look at the first sheet on the rental section, it shows third section down or second section down. It says listing units taken in 2016. They
were 55. Then the next year went to 53. The next year it was 53. The next year was 51. The next year was 60. So there's really not a lot of jumping around. Pretty consistent. So the rentals are consistently on the
market. Um and they don't go up and down very much. It's just not a lot of stuff being added that hasn't been there for a number of years. And so if you go through this, you'll see the increases. Uh then if you flip to the second handout
which are the prices of the houses, you'll see that there's been some dramatic increases in the prices of houses. You go back towards the bottom there, second up from the bottom that section that says sold year to date.
Um, you've got closed units and you can see across the top, but then down a little bit are the sales prices. 329, 340, 362, 387, and then all of a sudden 444.
If you flip to the back of that chart and just look at the last couple of quarters, particularly quarter one, the increase went from 403 to 505. It's a $100,000 increase in one year.
And that that's represent of the of the average listing price of the unit. And so those are so those are unit those are new units on the market. and existing markets that are brought back brought that are offered for resale there. These again include new and resale. So new construction. So if 15 units in
Pingri sell, it has an opportunity. It has a it would put upward pressure on that number as opposed to just 15. Correct. Okay. I just want to make sure that we're apples and apples here. Thanks. But but here's but here's the important point. At least from a real estate
agent's position, that price increase, whether it's new construction or not, represents a totally new kind of person coming into the town, wanting totally different services, totally different kinds of
schools, perhaps, totally different everything. And that's where a lot of a lot of the people who live in whatever town we talk about, who have lived there for years, you know, oh gee, it's changing. Yeah, it's changing. It's
changing everywhere, right? You know, if you want last, if you want the air of yester year, go beyond Fitchburg. It's out there. It's there. Athl, yeah. If you want, you know, even starts
with today, right? So, I mean, those places are still there. It's just that they're not here. And and we're, you know, I've been doing this for 33 years, and we had a company that covered New England. It was the largest ERA in New England, our company.
And uh we we saw, you know, the whole gamut for 20 years. Everything is moving constantly west. prices, people, everything. Um, and but
but air's out there. The old air is out there. It's just that you have to go west down route two and find it. Uh, but it's not going to be it's just not going to be here anymore. Yeah, that's what we're I understand. And so do we because we promote the town. You know, there there
are no other there really is no other real estate company promoting the town quite frankly because there's nobody else here. You know, the Westwood broker doesn't say, "Oh, by the way, when you come into my Westwood office, let me sell you Air. It's a great town." They don't say that. They say, "Let me take
you to air because you can't afford house. We're too good for you. So, let's take you to air." All right. I've been there. We don't do that. We say, "This is a great place to live. It doesn't matter where you came from." You know, we always joke around. I grew
up in Cambridge. This is Cambridge without the sophistication, if you will. But it's Cambridge. The people think like where I grew up in Cambridge. That's the way the people in here think. I don't know how much longer. Well, Cambridge had rent control for
many, many have rent control and so they had a reverse community. They did. They did. And that's where that comes from. And they also had something called Harvard. I went to Cambridge in black, right? And I would tell people that and they would say, "Oh, you went to private school."
Oh, yeah. I went to private school. You didn't call it Ring and Land, did you run? No. Ring and L is a joke. It's not Cambridge. So, you got the last one. Um, section 8. Put that in for information.
Okay. That's right. And that income level lags behind. One, let me make one point about section 8, which I'm sure everybody at this table knows, but it seems like landlords and the public don't know. It's against the law
to not take somebody because of section 8. Yes. And I get even other realtors when I call on on a Cobra rental and they say, "Well, we don't take section 8." No, really. What's your license number?
When somebody tells me that, I say just get their license number, call the state, and they'll get a visit. But the I hate to say the beauty of section 8, but you get the check on the first of the month. Yeah.
I worked with people who invested in multi-unit in Cambridge, all over Cambridge, Brighton, and other areas. And a certain portion of it is set aside. Absolutely. And it covers the nut on the building. Yeah. One of the other issues is that the people who utilize section 8, who
are using section 8, first of all, the waiting list is ridiculous. I mean, you know, nobody in this lifetime's ever going to get on the list, I don't think, or at least to the top of the list. 14 years. It's crazy. So, that's because you get people that
constantly use the system and don't get out of the system. And so, there's no place for the next person to move up. There is no moving up. It's like I've made it, my rent is paid, and I've got to keep it. Um, but people realize it.
Was it designed to be a temporary program? I don't know. I don't think it was designed to be a temporary program. No, I don't set incentives. And so, one of the problems that they have, if you look at um say um the
housing authority, go ahead. the housing authority is that they don't set incentives to save and move forward. And it's the way they've written the formulas. And unfortunately, they need to go back and rewrite all those formulas because you actually they if
you start making a little bit more money, they raise your rent because your rent is done on a formula and they don't have any way to to give you incentives to move forward, right? and give you that also that you know um safety net as
you move forward. And that's in all our public and we've got so many people who work in public um health and public, you know, service and social work and things like that here that you guys all know this that that that that's the way the formulas are written. And it's it's
really too bad. Mhm. But well, there's also if you spend 7 years waiting to get something and in the seven years you've experienced homelessness, you've experienced housing instability, you have gone through a lot of stuff.
You you need a lot of incentive to give up that program and people will do whatever they can to maintain it. One one of the confusing things for people that are utilizing this the the money from section 8 is
they will cons many of them consistently will when we answer the phone will say we have section 8 you have to take us well I already know that but I only have to but only I can't not take someone based on section 8 but I can not take
them based on a 410 credit score even if they're getting section And that's where the the the uh the people that are using section 8 and they deserve it. Don't misunderstand it. That's where they don't understand the
system and and we reject many section 8 people but not section 8. It's projection. You know the average credit score of people coming into air is about 550. Okay. It's not 700. And so our
landlords, we've had to educate them to lower their their sites as far as what they're going to accept. You know, they they run they own other buildings in Brooklyn where everybody, you know, not just that, but
they buy something out in air or surely they just they don't get it, you know, but they do eventually. Uh but it's interesting. There's confusion on both sides. The people using the system and the people outside of the system who don't understand the system. Um but
okay, that's my five minute. I would say also too for a lot of these folks who choose mult multiple different like um public programs or assistance programs the the rules for different programs don't work cohesively with you know the
rules for other programs. So, you know, say you do have somebody who's utilizing a section 8 voucher and that um housing authority is one of the good ones that does like the family self-sufficiency program where if their income is increasing, instead of charging them
that money for rent um as a rent increase, that money is going aside and as they hit goals and milestones once they have, you know, gotten them off, that money is returned to them, you know, and some folks are able to use that as a down payment to purchase a
home or you know something like that. Not all of them do. But say you were working towards doing that but somebody's on social security. Okay. So you have a maximum, you know, kind of asset level that you can have of $2,000.
So if you start to go over that, then you're going to end up losing your stable monthly income, you know. So I think a lot of it it you know plays in in with the different service providers that are working with the families as well and then again with education of
what types of programs are there. Some folks don't know that there are housing authorities that do write section 8 vouchers where they can kind of turn it from using it for rental assistance. few and far in between are then able to roll
that section 8 voucher over and use it as mortgage assistance and there's not a lot of people that you know know that um and one thing that I was sharing with Jake before the the meeting had started what's good about affordable housing is
it's kind of that next step so for me like where I'm working with the extremely low income folks there's no they think that that is it getting a section 8 voucher but this This is kind of you know a light at the end of the tunnel to show them there is something
more after that. You know you can work towards another type of affordable housing or you know talking to them about different type of USDA loans and stuff like that to you know maybe they are moving out to the apples or something like that but kind of you know
really making it attractive to kind of work towards financial stability and things like that. So I think it's, you know, kind of a combination of it's an overall thing. It isn't just one issue. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, cuz it's nice
because again, you get these individuals who are trying to better themselves. They hit that income bracket and all of a sudden now, I'm sorry, you got to be evicted because you no longer can live in this, you know, in this place. So, it would be nice if there are those types of programs and say, "Okay, great. Let's
take this, put it to the side so you can put that as your down payment." that maybe you don't have PMI and everything. And then I know the state has come up with programs like one mortgage to be able to help them, you know, get that mortgage and work with um whatever
credit, you know, lending facility so that they're able to get someplace and now all of a sudden they can get out of that, you know, apartment and now own a house. So it's like, well, we're moving right along. That is a good leeway into
big A and little A. How many people have heard that terminology for affordable? Open up your eyes, David. Um, so, okay. So, I've got Yeah, I've got Alicia and she's got the presentation.
She's got my 5 seconds. So anyway, um actually what's interesting when when Ron gives his presentation, it's very much it's it it's in some ways a micro. It's for the town of Bay and that's a great thing.
And so often our state town, my office is really tied into what's happening macro in the state and so and that and some of the things that I Ron talked about is going to go into here. Now, when we had um the master plan, here are
some of the I wonder if I can roll this. I'm standing over here. I know. No, I can't get the last. So, these were some of our goals and we've actually met many of them. The air affordable housing committee, we've been in together for two and a half years, almost three.
Yeah. And then the air affordable housing trust was created this spring. We have um we're trying to reach our 10% goal. We were very close to our 10% goal in subsidized housing inventory, which is the SHI list. and you're going to see
that on some of your um definitions and things like that. We'll talk about that a little bit more, but we've been losing units because at one point our rehab units were able to count on the SHI list and there were 15-year loans on those rehab units and they are no longer able
to count. So, we've lost a lot of those. We're going we're down in the 7% range. um if we create housing, the interesting thing that Ron was talking about is that you see that not much housing has been created, especially affordable housing.
And so that's the goals of both of these committees is really encouraging that affordable housing, encouraging that diverse income group because that's how you keep your community diverse and not gentrified and all that sort of thing.
So, um, we we chose a forbased code zoning district over a a 40R smart growth zoning district. And at some point we can talk about what the smart growth is. I Allan wasn't he's on the um we should have probably adjusted the
agenda because Allan's not here. he had something come up, but he will come and talk to us about how that works, how form-based code works with housing, too and how you can use it in your traditional neighborhoods. Um and so so
with the downtown formbbased code that is not only commercial businesses on the ground level that actually includes housing on the upper floors and we put in our inclusionary housing bylaw
and that creates one affordable unit for every um for every five standard units. I can't remember. Is it four or five? I think it's five. I think it's five here. Yeah. And so, and then um we've done some the
subdivision bylaws you guys have been working a lot about on that too. They're done. So, yep. So, all these things have been done and and so we can keep working forward. Now, question.
Yes. You said that um you know air chose the formbbased code and I remember that from the town meeting. Is is that it's one or the other? It's either chapter 40 or the other in in one in a particular district. Oh in a district. Okay. So a town can
have. Yes. We can still have 40 yard. Yes. Okay. if they choose to do it. Yeah, we'll be doing an additional reorganization. If people come away with nothing else, this is a big
step in understanding what we're doing. So, you say there's a lot of units up there that's still renting poor. There's landlords out there. There are still renting units for $700. Why are they not counted as affordable in the town? Air definitely has more than 10% affordable
units in the town. But when we talk about affordable, that's counts for our subsidized housing inventory, our shr. That's the big A. that means that it has a restriction on the deed
or um or is subsidized. Okay. And that we can count and the state gives us special when we hit 10%. It it adds us out of the comprehensive firmament, but that's not even big. I I was always told that
there was other things that the state gave us for SHI list for having a 10%. it is going to balance your community more than anything. So your little A is all the landlords that are doing the right things, renting for less money and
things like that. So there is a lot of affordable housing or it's it's the housing that was built as workforce housing in a meltdown and still goes for the 300,000 or the 200,000 which we have so little
of that right now. But so you're so yes, we have more than 10% housing that is affordable, but it doesn't. So that's the big A and little A. Okay. I'm sorry. So this is
this is what the governor wants. The governor wants a half a million homes built in 30 years. Okay, this is where he wants it. this. And as we go on slides, I'm going to
show you why he wants this. Because we have not been building you, you said that since 2000, there's been almost nothing. And and so these are really short slides, but the governor's goal and he's
gotten the zoning laws changed in the state. Tiny tiny changes. I know they're not as good as this on but but the town there has been very progressive here way more than the governor could have bring yes in this town
because we are we're still a progressive town and things that this is what they want and we vote unanimously over all many times on this sort of thing. So the governor is looking for um housing units to be built. Now this
is the this is the macro. So in 19 in the 1960s they were just you it's about 28,000 units were built, you know 70s8s and this is the '9s this
is the 2000 2010. So we're not we're losing units and our population is growing. These are just afford. These are big a little a units meaning total units being in the state. That's all in the state.
Doesn't seem like much. You drive around you see a lot more than that. Because we're doing the right thing out here. They're not feeling anything. But you go in you go into rehab. Yeah. There's towns that's what the zoning all of a sudden, you know, 1990s they
decided we like our towns just the way they are. No, we don't want a fourstory building. No, we don't want, you know, we just like our little New England towns and they just shut the door and said we're done. And it's really affecting the market prices. And it's
really affecting if you look at the people coming out of all those Ivy League schools, all the schools in the state, a lot of them are leaving the state because they can't afford housing. And so in two in the last 6 years he's got a
goal of 17,000 units. 17,000 units. We did 30,000 in the 1970s. 17,000 units a year and we haven't hit that goal five of the six years. So that's why if you want to do anything
with the state right now, they're all about housing. They have to get these units built. It will change the it will change the market. It will change the prices on axis. Sure. It just by increasing the um supply and demand.
That goes back to what Brown was saying, you know, the loaf of bread. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. And so in Massachusetts, we're one of the lowest in the country of building houses and that affects our job growth. people
are leaving the state because they can't afford it. And we and and and you guys all know this. I don't have to say this to you. There's all sorts of jobs just like there's all sorts of housing. Um and we need all of
them. We need the service industry. We need all of it. It's what makes our communities better. It's what makes our lives better. We appreciate all that. And it's better if you all live together, too. if you have places for everybody in your town.
I'm almost done. So, this is what somebody was asking about the percentage of how much you spend on your rent. So, if you make less than 20,000 on your housing, you end up spending 85%
of that on your housing costs. And this is an old chart. This is probably a year too old. So if you make 20 to 34,000 of your family, that's a family of one. I mean, when you start adding in,
you know, it it just goes right up. So the people who really really get hurt, we all get hurt when there's not enough housing stock, but the people who really suffer are the poor and this is we're part of Cambridge
um support people. So, so we're part of excuse Middle Sex County which encompasses a very large geographic area including Cambridge, Belmont. Belmont's middle sex water towns. There are a lot of communities in that you wouldn't think we match up with. So
that's you know they'll say they'll say Cambridge and Quinsey on here but it's and I update these every year and this one I put in extremely low usually. So most of the programs they say low moderate income. So, one person,
yeah, you are still considered moderating income, workforce income at 70,000 in this t district. This is under the big A. This That's right. This is under the big A. This is under the big A. So, this is how
we qualify people for the big A. So, um, and that's 80%. What say? I'm sorry. Is that the 80% of the of the median income? Yeah. Number. Yeah. Okay. The low income is 50. Yep.
And and and extremely low is 30. And so, for example, I'm going to kind of detour a little bit because as we go along in in the next couple of months, hopefully we'll be talking about this there. You know, we do have a 40B that's
looking at a lot a big parcel in town and they're a nonprofit 40 which is kind of a unique one. A lot of times they do, you know, they're more forprofit and they do sale of condos and they just put
in so many sale which only services moderate income because they're the only people who can afford those units, those condo units. Um it's a rental project that is looking and working and has submitted
an application to the state for approval and they are interested in building low 30% 50% and 80% units which would really change everything in this town to have
an influx of a number of rental units at those rates. And because they're doing um they're using tax credits, they that they will be subsidized units. So um and we'll be talking about that and
explaining all those if anybody's had questions about that. We can talk a little bit. Um I'd like to go back just a second. Okay. Just because I I I spent a lot of time trying to figure this out. I don't know if any of you guys can pick it up that quick. So, but I can tell you from my
own experience that I had a a big problem understanding the difference between the small affordable and the state regulated, you know, affordable, which is the what we're talking about here. And it was it's very surprising. I
don't think anyone is not going to be surprised at how high these figures are that people are eligible to find one of these affordable so-called affordable units. That's the big surprise. So, and these numbers keep going up all the time.
So, one of the things that that I opened my mouth about and learned a lesson was why is air in the Cambridge zone of, you know, why are we here? Why aren't we just like move one town over? Should the town one town over moved over? We're just on
the edge. I know, but why Shirley's in another a different They're in a western district or whatever the case might be. Right. I think it was just people drawing lines. Well, so I asked the question, why can't we just deter figure out a way to, you know, go to the other district and get these numbers down, you know,
lower so people with lower incomes could afford. And then I got the big lesson, which was, well, when we apply for grants and we go out and we fill out applications for funding, we the town receives higher rates of grants because
we're in a higher income related area. So there's two sides to every corner. and the stuff is very complicated. So it makes us have more affordable people in town. So when I am doing a CDBG grant and say we're doing
Pleasant Street, we we paid Pleasant Street which CDBG money which is community development block grants. Okay. And we did Pawn Street and we did School Street and that all was um community development block grants. They can only be used for lowincome people.
So, I have neighborhoods low-inccome neighborhoods. Low-inccome people or neighborhoods. Okay. And if I'm going to do a road, I have to make that neighborhood qualify. And I knock on every door usually at least three times and ask them how much
they make and that goes over really well. So, so the other part of this also I believe there is a asset value also for modern low income. No, not any longer.
Well, there is, but you know, I have researched and researched and researched it because I keep wondering when I qualify people how I'm supposed to deal with their assets. And what happens is some assets counts and some assets don't. But if they're
accessing their assets and they're taking it as income in a given year, I have to count it. if they're not accessing their assets at this it depends on which program you're doing. So it's just it's just a it's a very complex
it is and the direct the right hand doesn't always know what the left hand is doing and and the extremely low is not 30%. Now they've got a formula to come up with the extremely low the the the low income is 50% of the
area median income. And so if say I'm qualifying a street, I will go and I have to have 51% of the people on the street qualify under moderate or lower income. So I actually have to count on everybody on the street. And I had to
have the street not be a through street. It can't be servicing, you know, a a big district or that sort of thing. So I I I picked little blocks out that that we can count that way. and we bring in a little bit of money and we put in new
water and sewer and but it's good because you get into the lower um income neighborhoods and oftent times they're the last ones to get services. So, okay. So, did anybody have questions about any of this? This is going to be
an ongoing, you know, topic. Okay. Just because will this be on the test? you know when we're going to have a test at the end of this. So, this is the one that I think is really important because it relates to the fact that
we just need more housing. Yeah. And there's another way to put it. Community will thrive with a larger expanse of people in the community, more diverse, bringing in more. Absolutely. And that's something that we see
everywhere. and and people see it and everybody says how much they love the Cambridge of what you were talking about and now the Cambridge is not as diverse again. No, it's not. So on on PBS a number of years ago there
was a really interesting documentary series on um housing in the indust as h industrial housing from the very early I don't know if anybody else saw it but and it how it's how rent control came in
into place and when you understand what rent control was and and we gave up rent control I'm getting too deep But it's it's it's a very interesting series. If that if people are interested in housing, you might be able to find it someplace on. And they started out when
all the peasants were coming in in this series to the industrial centers where there were jobs and there was no housing for them. I remember those days actually. No walkability. Armstrong.
Yeah. Yeah, lenolium floors were made in water. They're on a factory and there were thousands of people who walked to workers. My father went to be good. Exactly. Nowadays you go to the mall where that was sneakers. You
I was going to say you got tiger paws. Good bridge. We used to test the sneakers. Yeah. not uni Royale, but so that's my that's my little piece and if people have questions and and come in and talk I'm always happy to talk about
the different things that we're doing and how it all relates and there's a whole lot of people here that have a lot of information from different aspects of this. So I think it's great if we have conversations because everybody has something to offer
here. Cambridge recently. It was defeated, but they had a proposal that before a landlord could sell his house, he had to offer it to the tenants. Nice. It was defeated. Oh, wow. So, that was an interesting idea.
Yeah, it was a good attempt. If you go up to Montreal, they still have a lot of rent control. But the problem with Massachusetts and the United States is they wanted the the governments wanted their taxes
and they made rent control. Now, you have to have sub subsidized taxes if you have rent control. And on many of the units that are affordable, big A, they have lower taxes. They have, if it's a
condo, they have a lower condo fee. So, they are subsidized in a number of different ways. And that's how we create some of this affordable housing. And Ken was like talked about, remember when you first found out how much it cost to build an affordable unit?
How much time it takes? Probably not. So, we went to a conference a couple years ago. This is mind-blowing. And they it took took six years to build a affordable housing project that was a new they would example $425,000 a year. That's what it
cost them to get those money those units on the market. But that's an average across the state and 20% of it if we're going to have a beef about soft costs, which I'm not sure how much people have constructed experience, but I have quite a bit. The
soft cost is just astronomical like 25% of the cost is lawyers planning approvals subsidized agencies you know people applications there's a massive amount of of loss in the the construction part of it were just soft
cost not not building a thing and that's what took it takes six years so I'm going to be very interested to see you know how this nonprofit can pull it off you know in air Um, and most of the successful projects in the state that have built recently by housing
authorities, the land was free. They they figured out a way in the town, a city to break a section of land off. And I think we should be looking at that in a big way. Um, and then that took them out of the ground. So that whole chunk of soft cost
was gone. real estate fees and all the engineering and you know a lot of other stuff is get the city and town involved right at the ground level 400,000 to build a unit like a two-bedroom unit so yeah and I think that's one more thing about the housing trust is the way the
diversity of the members are and the select board you know so that if there are town properties that are available then let's start looking at it because again there is still I don't know someone told ones that there's a
possibility of maybe 90 acres that may be available still to build on, but maybe 200 and some odd, but it's still a little more um next to conservation land and whatever. But I mean, in the town of Air,
all right, there's just not a lot of places to build. So, it'd be nice to go ahead and be able to do that on this, you know, the land that's available, but also to redevelop, you know, take the CDBG um grand monies and go CDBGs.
Yeah. And and and you know, and revitalize, you know, the buildings that are here because again, what was it? Three of them were built in the 1700s, you know, so you know that they need some sort of assistance. The buildings are still standing. I know. Well, because they don't make
them like that at all. It's like the fire department, too. Yeah, I know. We won't talk about Main Street there. Um, so I'm going to just move on because as we're talking about affordable housing and such, one thing I want people to keep inside their minds
is like when you're and when you're talking to individuals in town about affordable housing, they automatically go to 40B. they automatically say, "I'm not in my backyard." You know, it's it's like, you know, they they put up that wall of, "All right, I know we need
affordable housing in in, you know, in town. I know we do, but what's it going to do with the infrastructure?" All this other stuff. Again, this is some of the other sessions that we're going to have so that as you're talking to individuals about affordable housing, I almost want to switch it, you know, so that we're
talking about workforce. One statement that is inside um our housing production plan is we are a a commuting town. People who live in town work outside of town. People who work in our town live
out of our town. It's almost the same number of people which is fascinating. Oh yeah, it really is. It's like 3,500 people leave to go to work and 3,500 come into the town to go to workh every day. Yeah. And it's because people and I mean I think Jake you said it when you were you know uh during your interviews it's
like you want to live in town but you can't afford to live in town right okay and you know with that and even someone during town meeting went ahead and said we need to find ways to get people so who are working in town um also being able to live in town. So if
you can like say just keep thinking about all right when we're talking about affordable housing it's more workforce housing you know it's to go ahead and get individuals who work in town be able to live in town change the narrative change the narrative change the narrative yeah because as soon as like you say as
soon as people hear you know 40 beats like you know and it's like no it's not that the the only way we've been able to build housing that's affordable is because of the 40 beats throughout the whole eight. So I think that that's the
only reason it's not the only you can use examples already in town as well. So you know we have Habitat for Humanity homes that have been built and the willows. We have the willows. We have a honeybee. We have you know some affordable units even raised.
I didn't even know that was so there's there's examples of successful correct projects in town that we can do better. Yeah, people typically think of 40B, they think of typically think of something that is situated in this in an area in
an area of town close to um shops and you know what you need when you live somewhere and neither the Willows nor Autumn Ridge fit that mold. You need to own a car. You just there's no transportation. You're not walking to
the shopping and save from a ridge. Soon soon we'll be able to get them across town with up roads, but we're working on that too. But the infrastructure doesn't exist. But often times, you know, the the uh the the local option housing that's being thought up out on uh now, by the way,
that's another way of talking about it. Local option housing is being thought of over here um on Fishburg Road. It's near the things people need when they live somewhere. You can't go to You can't go to You
can't walk to a market basket in Littleton, but you can get what you need pretty close. Yeah. And you can actually walk to the train if you need. You can walk to the train and and if we build the inru if we if we enhance the infrastructure in such a way, that's going to make a lot of sense. And
that's part of the um master plan, too. Correct. So, local option housing is another way to think about it. Mhm. I was thinking about local option housing. Local option. That's what a 40B is. Local option housing project. I like that. Yeah. So to change the narrative and
another thing just came to mind too about the process of the 40B that typically developers are coming into town to build single family homes. So we have enough outside incentive for the development community to come to town through our planning and through the the fact we're getting but we need to
incentivize the rest of it. We we as a group need to incentivize the multif family the affordable concept because we're in competition basically with the the for-profit you know angle. So we have to figure out a way to incentivize
and get workforce housing built. Developers are going to take care of those. They're going to come in and build all the single family homes on every piece of land. Right now, what's going on is every engineer that sits in the area, every builder that's in the area within 15 miles of the air is
looking at air and it's looking at every single lot. I do the same thing on my home with GIS and you just look at every lot and you say, "Okay, what part of town is in? Okay, that that house I can demo that and I can put two houses on the same I can break it in. You know, we all know that there's a routine there
and that's going to be consistently happening. Allah Lexington, Allah other towns, and it's going to happen here. It's going to be happening next. So, what I'm saying is we can't we're not going to stop that because it's legal, but we need to put the effort into the
workforce housing. Otherwise, who else is going to do it? Yeah. And and I think if we can go ahead like you said that one developer um just to to let you know I mean the the nonprofit um company they really want you want a friendly 40D as they call it and cuz you
want somebody who's going to come in and work with the town not just do a you know sticker and bang that's it out they go and oh talk about absentee landlords you know I mean that type of thing. But we've got supposedly a a company that is got the paperwork to the state and like
I was telling everybody right at the beginning, you know, that there are certain things that have to happen with the 40B. They got to get the approval from the state before we can even send it to the zoning board for them to start looking at stuff. It's got to be approved. So with that, you're going to
hear people talk about, well, I hear that something's happening over on Fitsburg Road. It's possible. I mean they can still be turned down you know like say by the state and and such but yeah you've got to start somewhere an idea starts in your brain no matter what. So with that it's like okay great
it's an idea they started you know looking at the the plans of what they want to do and everything get it okay by the state then we got a time frame you know we've got specific dates that we've got to meet where it's 7 days from here 14 days from here 180 days you know that
all this stuff has got to go through zoning getting approved and public hearings and such. So, if their plan comes to fruition, they're not only going to be building one, two, three bedrooms, one or two, three, fourtory,
um, you know, buildings, but they're also going to be building open space, which is like this is what people, you know, again, you want, you want to be able to have that type of flexibility and the creativity of just not putting in cookie cutter buildings and and and
and such. this is going to have a a you know flare to it. And again, you know, when you're looking at um you know, the Willows and you're looking at Autumn Ridge, they've built a community. And if it's, you know, on French Road, you're walkable distance. Can I just point out
something? So, Autumn Ridge and the Willows were um forbes comprehensive. That's they did that so that they could get the density, but they were for sale. So that's a different group of people that they're going to service. They're going to
service the moderate income person because they're the only person group that can and there's an important part place for them. So they have to have so many units up there that get sold as affordable and all those affordable units. I think Augbridge has
17 or 19 affordable units in it and they all have deep restrictions in it. I mean not autumn the willow. the unit. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's four. It's much This is much smaller. Yeah. I I don't know that it's 40B, but why would they have four affordable
units if it wasn't affordable? Uh it was built long before I ever came in became involved in planning here in town. Yeah. Before I was here, too. So, um, but if you get a rental, and the only way you can get a really get a rental 40b is pretty much if it if it's got
some subsidies to it because the numbers don't work on it. And and by the way, we talk about 40B. We're talking about a comprehensive, but we're talking about chapter 40, paragraph B. Just so you know, we talk about mass general laws like 183A is
conduct statute. We talk about the different laws. So 40B is just nothing more than a group of words, you know, just just so we know. Everyone says, "Oh, it's bad. It's 40B." It's a group of words on the document, you know, chapter 40. Yeah.
Housing development and housing affordable housing development. Exactly. And density. Yeah. And and to what Alicia said about getting the open I mean uh Jan says about open space and stuff. We've got a lot of single family and and and and other units coming into town right now. There's a lot of construction going on.
The planning board has seen a lot and through the changing in our zoning bylaws and things we offer to developers, we've maintained over 50% of the space being open that some of our developments. So here our single family
is on an acre of land. You get 40 acres, you get 40 houses, you get 22 acres, we're getting 26 homes and 14 open acres. Mhm. So there there are incentives that you
can give to a developer to build the community the way you like to see it built up and similar thing could happen with a project that had that brings in um rental afford rental affordable housing. So Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. And um like I say, some
of the programs we went to, one of the housing uh apartment complexes um that didn't have uh town water or town septic had the or you know town sewer. They had their septic system on a field that was
considered open space um right in the middle of the complex. That's not uncommon at all. the chapter that ran you was I would Yeah. And I thought that that was pretty impressive, you know, to go ahead and be able to use it that way. All right, we're getting on
to 8:30. So, um um so this is one like I say I wanted to go ahead and make sure but I I do like um you know the local option housing and making sure people just realize I've got you know again definitions with regards to 40b you know whatever you know being mass general law
enacted in 1969 all that stuff but I get carried away sometimes with all the facts um um and this is one oh never mind I'll come back to that next thing on the agenda I'm just going to keep moving is um rental assistance. So,
excuse me, master. I'd like to congratulate you on keeping Alano into a very short first ever. That's right. Um, that's why I asked you to do it. Seriously, not okay because it's all
that information. I want I want that demographic. So, I really do not this here. The um the rental assistant programs. This is from MHP. You're going to hear their name um stated often,
which is mass housing partnership. They are a lifeline. I don't know how else to call it. um where we are going to be inviting a woman by the name of Shelley Goran um to do a presentation for us because she's the one who gave us
information on how to start the housing trust and everything. she is the backbone um inside you know we're one of the um main uh individuals of MHP and to to go ahead and get programs up and going but
also too she has the information of how to use the um community preservation funds and such. So, this helps out. Again, um you always look for resources and and whatever, but we are going to be
starting to be asked for um emergency rental assistance from individuals that are being evicted because the eviction really ends July end of July tomorrow. End of July.
So, it's July 31st. That doesn't mean it is. The Supreme Court said that today said that it it's okay to extend. But that prohibition, but is that on the federal level or the state? Yeah. So, it doesn't mean that it's
going to be in any local. It doesn't mean that it will be. It just means it's okay to do that. Thanks. A number of towns have chosen to use some of their CPAC funds to give rental assistance anywhere from, you know, $500
a month to first they take applications in a period of time. They decide how much they're going to spend in in a year and they set people up for anything from 6 months to a year of subsidizing the rent. maybe $500 a month, but $500 a
month for a family that's, you know, spending 70% of their income on their their housing makes a big difference. It makes a difference in what they buy for food or maybe medicine or, you know, sneakers for the kids and things like
that. So, so that's something way to work. Yeah. To to these committees to talk. Exactly. And one good thing about it is you know the CPA funds have already been CPA stand for the community preservation
act. Okay, that is what um in 2000 what the state created. Um so the act has the funds. The CPC is the committee itself within town that goes ahead. There's 197 um CP um C committees within the state
of Massachusetts. with that. Um, we've already the the CPC has given $30,000 to the housing fund um just so that it can be used to help out with this emergency um rental assistance just in case we you know we need it. More monies can be
asked and that would be what the housing trust will go ahead and be able to do um at the fall town meeting. So um again looking at schedules we have to figure out exactly what is presentation and how much money is the housing trust really would like to to have. Again we started
with 30 because we just wanted to make sure to get the the ball rolling with this um so this document here um speaks specifically it's for like emergency rental assistance due to the pandemic. Right. But are we proposing
is this group proposing that we develop something that would be ongoing way past that? Well, this is a choice of the town. Okay. So, and and the housing trust is the group that actually handles the money. We develop jointly the program, but the
housing trust is the one that would go and ask for the money and make the votes on the money and that sort of thing. Is that similar to like the EFSP funding? which is the emergency food. Oh yeah. So like the that comes from CD
community development just say no it's a little different actually. Um so so there's the the emergency rental assistant that came through co that is being and that's being run in a
regional situation. They're bringing it out regionally. And Recap Solution and community housing has that. And then there's the RAF program which is rental assistance, rental assistance for families in transition. For families in transition. I always
forget the four. So I don't get to the for families in transition. And both of you um do you find that people are getting access to that money? Yeah. And I actually saw that they increased the raft funding from 4,000 to on average 8,000 and can even go up to
10,000. And they also increase the income limit to 80% AMI. Yeah. And I today I heard um I was listening to a program on the radio that right now there's a billion dollars in Massachusetts for rental assistance available. So and they're trying to
extend they're granting many more applications. They send people over to Recap Solutions and they don't nobody answers the phone. Okay. And because there's been such an influx of applications and because we're getting down to the deadline, they now
opened up like a third party to now process the applications that I think is going through Metro Housing is I think who's and that's just the processing center. So like based upon where you apply, you're going to get an application number. So like if you go
for CHA, it's going to be like CH and then a number after. Um but if you go to ARAP, they're they're bogged down. Um because on top of, you know, just those regional funds, they're also doing the homebased administration for, you know, all of Worcester County except for
Worcester and they don't consider us Worcester County, but we're part of them. And so sometimes they're like, you don't belong to us. And and that's that is our ship. We we're kind of in that corner where in some places we're at Cambridge and some places we're at
Worcester and and we're not always owned by anyone. Just a little town. Well, you laugh because we're doing stuff with um the NPOS's MAPC and MRPC and we don't really belong to either one, but they both want
us or something like that. Yeah, it's pretty funny. So, I just want to say to everybody, there's a whole lot of acronyms that we're talking about. Everyone should just feel comfortable saying, "What does that mean?" And everybody will get, it's going to take a
while. It took the committee a good year or so to really start, okay, we're starting to get this and and we're still learning. Well, yeah, it's interesting to hear that there's a billion dollars in the fund for emergency rental assistance.
Um, I happened to catch the TV the other day and they want to extend the tax-free holiday from a weekend to two months and I said to myself, really, why aren't we doing housing? Why aren't we doing this? Why aren't we doing that? And it's so it's good to know that that's also
happening cuz that's never going to make it onto the news, you know, and I want to know and anybody who has any information, are people getting the assistance? Do do we think that people are going to need this at rental assistance in town? This will be like a
homegrown program where it's they just have to give us an application. They got to show us income and we just make an agreement with their landlord that we would pay X amount per month for this long period of time. And is that worthwhile? And that's something that
we'll all talk about when I think I definitely think so. especially um you know we do have such a a diverse socioeconomic town and um you know somebody always said people are one paycheck away sometimes um and so having this type of program
whether however many people utilize it or don't to have it there would be a good safety net um I would just say when considering your parameters or your guidelines for applying to make it as least encumbersome or restrictive as
possible. I think the one thing with most social programs is that um you know they want your high school diploma. They want pictures of you know there's so many and there's so many if you don't have this one piece of paper you can't qualify and it's
when people are in that position everything shuts down. Yep. Absolutely. You know I I can give people a list of places to call and get help. No, I have to call them with them because they just they just literally can't. They're so overwhelmed. So, I agree with you.
Make it make it as easy as possible. And I mean, CO has I think taught a lot of people um about, you know, how beneficial technology can be because before, you know, somebody didn't have transportation. Yes. Getting to Worcester to get to ARAP
solutions or CHA to try to apply for rental assistance. Um it wasn't happening. Um so you know now with you know some of the RAP funding um they are able to apply right online and I think that a lot of the landlords also don't
know either they can start the process and the application on behalf of the tenant. Um so you know there is you know the funds that are being accessed and it's through both ways. Um but I mean I think for a lot of folks you know it
would be beneficial in in air. You know, I think that there's a lot of people who are just prideful, too. And because we do have the small community, you know, kind of feel like maybe they're, you know, not going to go to their neighbor or, you know, a friend or a church member and say something, but, you know,
would feel more confident to be able to reach out to somebody within, you know, the town hall. I I think it would be something. I know that there's a lot of people that come to the country that um that tell us that because we're giving them food, they can now pay the rent. Yep.
Yes. Isn't that a horrible thing you have to choose between food, meds, rent? And I think another benefit to having something that's local is that um it can be much more accessed quickly versus a lot of these state agencies, you know,
the process takes so long. Um that, you know, like we already talked about like section 8, the waiting list is, you know, 14 years long. Um, but if you're able to be more reactive to something um for somebody that it will make a big difference, not just in being able to
decide what else you can pay for um but the immediate need. People don't often seek services like because they think they're not going to have rent in 6 months. It's because they haven't been able to pay their rent for 3 months. Ch, can I ask you a question? We we try to get to the point that a fall town
meeting would be the next step of our what we thinking and I guess what I'm asking is you looking for support in getting like an annual uh funding. I think that's what your goal is, right? So we started with 30,000 last year. Nobody even questioned it. We're setting
it up. Should we just be shooting for like 30 or 50 like every single something like that? I mean every single year to build the pool up and then as as this as your group sets up the trust, the trust has a way of getting funded. I don't know if that makes any sense at all.
Correct. And and you can ask for then you can go for so that that's a town meeting commitment but then on top of that you separately have the potential of going to CPC for correct and possibly this is something that we should talk about at the next
meeting is along with the rental program that we need to talk about is um what the trust will be responsible for. The possibility is that as we get um funds for housing, if you put money into that pool, then a
developer could come to the trust versus coming to CPC CPC if they need it quicker. And this happened um over the border in Littleton recently. There was an application to the town for a mixeduse
um affordable project and the Littleton required them to have so many affordables and they're actually going internally to get the money because with what's happened to building costs, you know, they're looking at a 40%
increase in cost from when the pro project started just on supply on buildings and materials alone, right? So, they're looking back to the town and say, you know, we want to make it good. Is there a CPC opportunity here? It may not be a bad a bad use of the money. Mhm.
Because they're they're going to put a bunch of units over there that make a lot of sense. Yeah. Cuz I know that Habitat for Humanity right now is hurting because they've got all these projects and, you know, again, the the housing cost of, you know, the materials has gone through
the roof. The large builders bought the futures for almost all of the raw material. Yeah. Asphalt shingles. You can't get them. Mhm. Amazing. as I go. But no, I think, you know, we brought up at CPC that the
housing trust is going to be coming forward, you know, asking for monies, you know, and I think it should be something just like the conservation fund, you know, where the CPC put the $500,000 in for that, but now the town
is adding money on a yearly basis. Same thing with this housing trust. We started it, you know, with the $30,000. Now, let's go ahead and keep feeding it. So again, this is quicker money. You don't have to go through um the only town process that you have to go through
is when you first, you know, start putting the money in and then you ask, okay, for the additional monies, but once it's in there, if a developer needs it, it can just take a meeting to go ahead and vote and again make sure that the public is aware, have a private, you
know, have a um a public hearing or a public information session so we keep everything as transparent as possible. But this is how these monies are being used, but you don't have to wait six months to get to a town meeting. You can have to do, you know, do this all within
a approximately one to two month period. As long as you give the two weeks notice, you don't have to. So that's the reason why these funds are so important um because it's quicker access to the monies. So yeah, to answer your question, I can see it being fed plus
additional monies as the housing trustees fit as they're looking at new projects, whether it's rental assistance, development or, you know, rehabing houses. Um, I mean, right now I know that we've got, you know, some things coming up to CPC, you know, for
money requests. Hence why we passed the town and the town successfully gave us the 3%, you know, rate. And with that, now we've got the monies to do all these things to make sure that we have, you know, again, the housing,
ball fields, um, playgrounds, you know, things like that. So, all right. Um, all right. On setting up the calendar, I found this meth this meeting helpful. And I know I'm going to look at you guys. Okay. I said, you know, you guys,
all right, up to four times a year. Or is it at least four? At least four times. Yeah, at least four times a year. That's the part I checked, Jack. It's like I think, you know, it's helpful, especially in the beginning to be able to get, you know, the the ball
rolling and um you know, good foundation. I found this meeting helpful. I hope everybody else did, you know, to get this type of information. Um, do you want to do this again next month with everybody and then we can sort of
like get on your calendars? Um, keep it on Wednesday. Yeah, we can. Well, Wednesdays are also tougher for you though. No, what's the best date? Everybody say
get picking, you know, what's what on Monday through Fridays. What? Monday through Thursdays. Monday through Thursday. Friday's a tough word. Yeah, Wednesday's best for you. Wednesday. Wednesday's work.
I just Yeah. And we can What is today the what? Wednesday of the month. didn't you notice all the paper projects happening around the state cuz they get paid tomorrow so they can work for their true
um so the third third Wednesday is third Wednesday Wednesday but I don't know Wednesdays. I think there's a fourth the fourth and Wednesday in July is the 28th. I'd say that they're everybody's probably got big
therm. Are we traveling again together this time? No, the 28th would work. You're out of a job at every wheel. Um, so the 28th, so July 28th, 7:00 works out well.
Thank you. Okay, we all confirm it with the Yes. And we'll write you all emails and then what I'm going to have you guys do, right, cuz now you all have each other's emails, okay? Is, you know, keep in
touch with each other. I mean, look at open meeting laws. can't discuss, you know, things and such. Um, but inside your your mind, think about if you do want to become the chair, think about if you want to be vice chair, those that are love taking notes, you know, um, to
be the clerk. Uh, so that this way here, I'm thinking, and I'm just going to throw this one out to the committee. I'm thinking that it will be a housing trust meeting and the committee will be the invites and we can have a separate
meeting too as well to to go ahead cuz there are still some um minutes and um I think it would be good then to start presenting you with some of the ideas that the committee had for policies, procedures, applications, you know, things like that. So that paperwork has
already been done and then you get to play amongst the the paper and everything else like that going I like this I like this don't like this and you know edit and this is like pretty much what we do with the bylaws you know it's like as we came up with it we just kept giving feedback and such does that make sense
right um yep is there like a crash course on like how trusts and committees work like I don't know if like you guys know I don't know anything about about it. Um, we'll keep So, like any kind of like guidance or
things I could I was going to ask as well. Is there any educational resources like on any state websites we can look at and try to get like a better understanding? Yeah, I can send you something. That'd be that'd be good. I say send it to all so that everybody's on the same
page. I mean, I was going to ask that question. Did they have to take the um Did everybody get our um training? Probably hasn't been done yet. doesn't have to do. Okay. So, luckily you you didn't have a meeting. You just came and sat in our
meeting, but everybody has to be sworn in before we you guys have a meeting. You go to Sue Susan and she'll swear you in. Okay. And and number one, if I may,
couple rules of thumb once we're sworn in as members of the affordable housing trust. If there's seven members, yes, there's six right now. So, four is a quorum. Yep. So, if you happen to be four in a room, don't discuss anything. Massachusetts
open meeting law says when there's a quarant present, you cannot discuss it. Massachusetts open meeting law also says that anything discussed in an email is not available to the public and any is not readily available to the public. So you might get an email from Alicia that
says for information only, not for debate, right? You might want to write back, Alicia, you you know, but you can't. So a lot of the information is is a one way. Then you meet in a room and you feel like you rehash it, but what you're doing is you're opening it up to the community at
large. Okay? But you're also not allowed to discuss things serially. So you can hit quarrel. This is true by discussing it. If I discuss with J discussing Yeah, you're not supposed to indicate
you can discuss things but more important factor is you're not supposed to indicate your stance on something opinion or something when you have the discussion. Cindy's got it. You have to take a course. Well, nobody had to take, you know, you have to take
a um conflict of interest and you got to take ethics. All right, those two have got to happen. I ask cuz when I first got on the department, they had me take a couple classes like that and it would be nice to do some refresher classes and and what'll happen is you'll I think
Cindy's going through it now. um annually you need to answer a bunch of questions and it walks you through okay how to break and and so one of the challenges we're a small town planning board has multiple members who go to the same church it's just assumed that they're not doing planning board business while they are
at church correct fair enough or if you go to fish fry night together sit at separate tables it's okay so just for from from my understanding we are only allowed to discuss uh topics in in a meeting like this that where the the public's able access the
information. Anything in private is difficult. But if you have if you are doing research about it or have questions about it, you can ask. Okay. And when there's a structure like a chair, a vice chair, a clerk and stuff like that, leash is always available. So it it very quickly becomes not a
problem. It's like you're at the job. Some things for human resources, some things for your boss, some things is for your co-workers. You got to have the conversation. Is that fair? I'm sorry to jump in, but when we're going to meet, we can always discuss when we're going to meet as a
group that breaking laws. Yeah. And that's a I'm sorry, but that's a really good question. Mhm. Yeah. No, it is because again, you know, we've been doing this for so long. So, yeah. Thank you. And Alicia's got the uh PDF file
file, right? So on the town manager page is something called the town officials toolbox which has links to the open public records and some documents that the town was put together. For example, the boarding
committee member guide which has a wealth of information to share about um just about you know running your board committee as a checklist. May I ask, Madam Chair,
will the members of the housing trust get aair us email address or they use a personal email address? I think you'll get this from I'm going to I'm going to ask for, you know, for a air.mma us um email address because one, it
protects you legally. Okay. Um and it makes it very easy to manage the process, right? your your personal stuff versus the, you know, the town stuff. And also too, if anything does blow up, which I,
you know, knock on for Micah, you know, it hasn't for me, but um you get that phone call from Janet. Hi, this is the 911 dispatch. Now, we got Detective Bar coming over they call this one here. They don't look
through your private stuff. All right. same thing, you know, um I mean you you know you may have your phone and whatever, but um it's like just just remember that if the town is being brought on any type of suit or anything like that, you want to keep your privacy
private. So that's why I'm going to what I'm going to do, okay, is I will ask for your own email addresses the air.mma us. I'll go ahead and I'll contact you um and I'll CC you all of um saying, "Okay, great. We need you guys to be sworn in
um as the the board of trustees as well as um getting the documents from from Carly on the links to the conflict of interest and the ethics plus also um I just thought of one thing and it just
went um to you know again to make sure that you've got um you know all all those resources and signed off um and whenever I think about And I'll let you know. Just so you know, getting sworn in takes
three or four minutes. No, no, no, no, no. You got to come and go. So, it takes and and the ethics uh training and the other training we do on an annual basis. And if you really take your time and read it two or three times, maybe 15
minutes total. Yeah. It's not an overwhelming It's really better $50. you can't accept anything period, don't worry about it. But but seriously, and they're great questions and you have questions, uh Carly Antelis in the select select
board's office and S Susan Copeland is a town. They're they are the resources to turn to. Yeah. And they can answer your questions cuz they've had they've heard them all. Mhm. They've heard them all. They have mostly for me.
So again as we get more education series when we find you know different type of seminars I think those that joined um found them really helpful um so we'll keep you know distributing that throughout the group as well and um as
we hear more things about projects in town um it will be you know this will be on the agenda and everything. So, I'll still do the agenda and everything else for the 28th in case it's on, but you know, you guys don't mind. Um, and you know, get everything going and then
again, as time progresses, we'll start branching off on our own and still have join meetings. But, okay, I'm going to ask one maybe one more request and Alicia, hate me if you want to say no. I was unable to find anywhere on the town website the affordable housing trust that we passed
at the town meeting. Oh, well, we give you copies of that that should have been in your folders. I I couldn't find it and I honestly wanted to go through it again because it's just one of those things. We'll give you a hard copy. Perfect. Or just email it to email you a soft copy.
Yeah, that'd be great. Okay, I can I can I just couldn't find it. I I And that you know, it hasn't been loaded up onto the website, I don't think, yet. Well, that's also true. I think we need to create a separate Yeah. Yeah. I didn't mean to throw you under
the bus there, kid. Boy, what have you been doing with your time? So, um, all right. So, the things I get to do on the midnight shift, you know, generate on this website, the ideas, I send them over to Sunday. Okay. I had a full-time
job before I got to committees. I know that. I'm only semi-retired, so I only have a few minutes a week. All right. So I'll I'll send you a PDF file, you know, the Bible. That's the other thing is that's the guide that that's
that's I was going to say that's the guide. That's what we ultimately have to do. I guess it will create that separate general. Has he been accepted by the attorney general? I don't know if I don't know. Well, I didn't hear that.
Has the housing trust document since it went through? No, that's the other thing I need to get in touch with Susan because they cuz we need that's the thing. We need your signatures on it because the um the board of trustees needs to sign it. Oh, that's why that's why we need a structure.
Yes. So, yes, I sign stuff for the town all the time. Don't worry about it. That will be done soon. Okay. Mine's so easy to do. All right. Can I get Does not look like
meeting for the journ. We'll see you guys all on the 28th.