all right welcome to the community relations meeting of the Greenfield city council we are now at order and uh have our new Committee Member so welcome Council Minos to the
committee howdy thank you and C Brown so our my first order to is to say this meeting is being recorded by the community relations committee if any other persons present
are doing the same you must notify the chairperson at this time okay awesome um and then I need a a verbal that uh counselor Minos is
here so um yes great we're going to just take a roll call of members so I have councelor Minos councelor Perry present councelor Brown
present and I am here and councelor Gilmore is not all right uh our first order of business is approval of the minutes for November 18th 2024 do I have a motion to approve the minutes please I make a
motion for approval the November 18th minutes and I heard a second I was going to say a small grammatical edit someone's pronouns were different oh but I don't know if that's mine mine copy I don't know if it's worth
fixing but anyway I didn't catch that but Sage Torito is non-binary which one Sage toito is non-binary okay so hire an amendment to the minutes to fix um sages
pronouns I second that okay and so the amendment has been seconded and I we'll just do a roll call for approval of the minutes as amended as amended so councelor Brown yes councelor
Minos I think you said said yes but we didn't hear them okay okay uh councelor Perry yes and yes from me so we so that is approved great um next order of business is our public
comment period um we don't have anybody in person so um we have at least uh Stephanie on um Stephanie do you have have you put in uh for public comment she might be it seems like
it yeah she might be W from the computer hi I did put my name in the chat Stephanie to Street sorry I missed that okay it's okay I was literally trying to type it as fast as you guys were saying hey anybody want to speak um enough
three minutes okay so um I see the housing is on the agenda tonight and I wanted to add that you know there was some concern with pulling a federal funding um regarding subsidized Pro um properties
so I um when we're thinking about developments we're trying to bring in we're subject to a lot of the federal um funding so I'm concerned that we're going to have some of that pulled that also concerns me in the school system as well
um as far as quality of life stuff um I am experience a lot of uh new activity in my area because the homeless shelter was put in my backyard and the warming shelter you know about 50 feet
maybe 100 at the most beyond that um there have been increased crime um vandalism um every car in the neighborhood um if well not every car but several cars in our neighborhood
have been broken into and we have public uh responders on a regular basis in my neighborhood so I imagine that um there'll be some discussion regarding the homeless today and what the housing plans
are um I do have to say given my own personal experience uh I would definitely notify on the site approval plan process which is coming up I would also uh want a Butters to be notified
the there is a law on Mass General law that we can't preempt about notification so I don't want to see us falling us being the green Greenfield falling into uh legal issues with trying
to change something that a Butters are legally able to be notified about um that's about it I do have more but I don't I only have three minutes so and I don't have anything written down because I'm at work so uh that's what I have to say
thanks thank you so much all right it is 6:08 and I am closing public comment so um we've invited Amy and Susan to join us tonight so why don't you come off to to the big kids table so Our intention is to regularly
as part of the Public Relations Committee is bring in um experts to to further the conversation of what's happening in Greenfield and so our first topic is housing tonight and so um
be great uh I'm trying to think who to start with she got the paper yeah so Amy if you want to introduce yourself and your Ro in the city um and then just would love I think what I was hoping for and I
emailed you both about is there's a lot of projects that we keep seeing in the paper and this here and this that and to just like between the two of you get a give us a sense of what's going on so sure um so I'm Amy Kalin I'm the
director of community and economic development for the city of Greenfield um and I figured I'd talk uh I'd address sort of two buckets one is ongoing development I'm not going to get into the weeds of every development
project because that's not the point of tonight's meeting but I can um just give you a sense of what is already underway and then I thought I'd spend a minute talking talking about other ways that my department interacts with housing in the city because I think there are some things we do that don't um people either don't know about or they don't get
talked about a lot and it might just be helpful to say a sentence or two about that and then I will field whatever questions and Susan will fill in the gaps and correct me where I go um so I'm gonna I'm GNA pass out two handouts we quickly made councelor
minhas I apologize I don't have this for you but these are essentially in our in the housing study there's this development pipeline that may look familiar familiar to all of you um and I just took that and updated a little bit there's not much of an update to it um
but what I'm passing around now I will email so that you can distribute it to everybody perfect can you please post that online as well thank you sure thing I say looking at Laura to make sure that knows how to do that I
will figure out how to do that um great thank you and these are just it's an internal um document that my department pulled together so um as we come as no surprise to you um and Stephanie Stephanie actually brought up the issue of funding between Federal
funding and just the nature of funding in general and doing construction and Housing Development these days um this is as things look today that could look different tomorrow
um but you there's a a list of all of the projects that I'm aware of that are currently underway the ones that we added um to this list primarily are uh 80 School
Street which used to be Barts and snows um ice cream I've added it there with a giant asterisk when the property was sold um there were plans included at the time of that sale that showed that that property could contain houses
I don't know if the developers are going to do housing there they may decide to make it retail they may do something totally different but I added it on the list as a a parcel that it would feel logical given that there are plans floating around out there that it could
be housing um we also added uh Stone Farm Lane I don't believe was on the original um pipeline list so we've added that that is um 24 units being done by Noble home and then I added two properties
currently owned by the city 31 sheepside Street and 29 Washington Street um again these have an asterisk next to them they are Parcels that our department is talking about asking the city to Surplus um because they both are developable as
single family homes um whether that goes through city council and eventually turns into housing or not is um TBD but I wanted to include them on the list in the interests of um fonus yes so if you add up all of these units understanding
that some of these things are up in the air um some of them we don't know the units for and the unit numbers May shift a little it's roughly 200 units the city's housing study said over the next 10 years we should aim for 675
to a th000 units um so this is a good first step of um but you know it's definitely obviously not getting us there but we're only in 2025 um I think Laura when you emailed me you also asked about a timeline yeah
I don't know um each of these projects is moving along at a different timeline so for some of them there may be construction happening sooner um the 60 well Street property there is some construction underway now um the Wilson's Redevelopment for the putam um
I believe some infrastructure work may get started this spring um a lot lot of these projects are still in the permitting and the funding phase um 184 Petty plane road which is a habitat single family home
that one should be finished that's probably the first of these where's the projects it's um you you know where the fairgrounds parking is yeah if you go to the I guess it would be the West End and
you look across there's the road there is a small house that's being built there oh okay was this originally part of the wisdom way solar no well actually the land was yes and they sold the land to them to to be able to uh to put up
this house yes okay I actually have a couple of additions that forgot to for it all right um first of all I'm Susan wapic and I work with housing Greenfield and housing Greenfield is an advocacy Organization for um the community and
works with individuals organizations um we're lucky to have folks from the city who attend um and so it's a wide variety of folks to talk about housing issues learn about what's going on and if necessary then uh proceed to write appropriate letters
that kind of th stuff in relation to housing in addition I'm also a commissioner for the Greenfield Housing Authority okay and it's the Housing Authority that I completely for didn't think about until we were talking to to give you an idea of what what's
happening there um we are looking to uh do some major work on Wi on the Winslow which is at the corner of Maine and Wells um we are looking to develop
that as Supportive Housing which it is not right now even though the populations that are in the shelter and are in uh in the of the Winds low are largely the same um so we are in that process of developing of there's a
relationship going on there it all things being equal we hope also to have two fully to add two fully accessible units in that building um so our our units are accessible but not in the
they're in the you know uh 20 20 uh 2008 accessibility range as opposed to the 2025 ex accessibility assumption so these would be two fully accessible units also we are working on developing
five units on uh the island between um Elm Street and and and uh and Conway Street oh okay so right near where the health center is yeah there's those two houses there's two houses and then there's a a wooded
area in between we were hoping to make those five accessible units unfortunately the geography does not allow that um there's a lot of ledge there and we can't we we we can't figure out how to do it and any if we try to
get um affordable units into that area that are and we have less than five we are going to have a real hard time getting them funded so we will be doing four um units that that are um that are
are affordable and we'll be doing one affordable fully accessible unit there um so that's in progress we have we have some um funding nicer is they've done the outside of those houses yeah I we
have a very I got to say the the maintenance team at um at the Housing Authority is pretty amazing they work all the time they work really hard and they've done really good job in trying to maintain all the buildings that we
have so it's it's been really impressive um but but those those are also kind of on online to happen over you know the probably the housing on um on Conway
Street will happen earlier than everything with uh with with the wind slow but it's in it's in the range of all of these other projects here I guess I'll just on the yeah housing I can offer some other things that my department is doing in housing
if you'd like to hear those first um a couple things that we're doing uh my department administers Community Development block gr funding cdbg and in this current cdbg round of funding that we're administering right now we are partnering with Community Action to do a
housing rehab program we opted to partner with them because they have existing programs that can access other grant funding for things like um efficiency upgrades roofs things of that sort so this is we hope a way that will stretch Community Development
blackground funding a little bit more um so that program has gotten underway recently we are they're in the process of selecting their first house to um repair we also administer the get the let out program with Greenfield Savings Bank which helps um delting for income
qualifying folks um and we are starting a small pilot program in our office for people who are right at the edge and don't um income qualify that will help them um prepare bid ready specs so that even though we can't um pay for the
actual delting work we can arm the homeowner with information so they know they're getting a good price and a good quote and they're asking for the right things to be um deleted that's huge because we had a contractor in my house who said that they were certified and
then they weren't and we're looking for a bribe to like bring in someone else who could sign off on the project so we've had a couple of um applications come through recently where um the get the let out program is very strict um on who qualifies and who
doesn't understandably and folks who were they just missed the qualifier and this is a way that we felt like we could offer um some support to them um so we are doing that and we also work with the um health department and the building
department and the Attorney General's office on the receivership program um it's a program where properties that have fallen into um disrepair in Greenfield and eventually get um condemned by the Board of Health uh can
through a court process have a receiver appointed who will come in and fix up the property and then um sell that property it's a very long slow moving process um but it you know there are sometimes where folks pass away and their family owns a house and they just
don't have the ability or desire to care for it and this is a way that um properties like that or if someone is elderly and they're in a nursing home and the property is just languishing um they can help properties like that and I have one other thing that I would mention in terms of housing
Greenfield and that is that we are we have a an intern who is working with us to uh go looking at rental properties in town to establish whether they
um the addresses of those properties because believe it or not we do not have a list in the city of all of the addresses of the rental properties in town um and to also look at how many um
mailboxes they have how many um electric meters they have um to ensure that we have have um um rental units that are up to code um and uh so we are doing that right now um and we'll be doing it
through May um when our little Grant is done but we have a student who is working with us and we are looking forward to getting some information that information will go to uh the city in terms of the assessor's office the housing um the uh rather the the health
department and the building inspector and possibly other do you think C she'll be able to capture everything before May yes by by the end of May you know we're we're looking I mean we're not going to do the whole city but we will we expect to to that that our student will be doing about 80
hours worth of of work and we expect so far our you know it's been winter so it's been hard but we've been doing about 10 minutes a house so we figure that we can uh we can get a significant number of houses and we're we're trying to pick areas where know there are a lot
of rental units as opposed to we have a we have a listing we have a listing um of where they are and we're doing a street by Street and and trying to to get at least a basis to be able to do this and I think if we do it well we can probably get another Grant from Chapa to
complete the job um next year so anything else you guys want to add answer question question yeah when we open his questions um I just want to make sure that councelor Minos has a chance to chime in if if you want to
it's always hard when you're online yeah this was some very useful information um a lot of the stuff I didn't know about so uh thank you I'm I'm just trying to soak it all in great so um yeah it looks like we've
got a pretty good mix throughout the the city um uh my question is just on the kind of affordability mix and I know there are different words for like whether it's affordable housing or
officially affordable or just affordable for normal people um versus Subs size so I just want to get a sense from all the projects let me explain that would be great because that that's um the federal
government on an annual basis now we don't know what the federal government's doing anymore but HUD has in past years in past years HUD has done an analysis of what a family one 2 3 four five all the
way up to eight would need an income in order to be able to have 30% of their income go toward housing and that 30% would would go toward not just rent but also utility bills that kind of stuff
okay um the idea is that 30% of your income is what you should be paying to H to to be living in a home and be have it be affordable to you so you should be able to take the
rest of your income and use it for food and clothing and whatever else you need to to use it for and if you are H having to spend more than 30% the federal government considers you cost burdened okay we have a lot of folks in
town who are at 50% or more in terms of what they are paying of their incomes in order to live in housing um so part of what we're looking to do and we talk when we talk about affordable housing what we're talking about is housing that
would either through Section 8 certificates or um Massachusetts rental Voucher Program certificates or um or through um with having the housing built with State
funds which up requires that we be at that 30% limit um so for instance that's one of the things that Wilson's is involved in right and that's part of the reason it's taken a little while for them to get going is they had to get all that those pieces together um that that they
would be charging 30% of people's income and they have a mix that in terms of those those house those um developments they and they have a certain number of years they have to do that depending on what the
funding is so it could be 15 years it could be 30 years it could be in perpetuity it depends on what the mix of funding is and it's housing is far more complicated than I ever thought it was going to be and I still don't understand it but those it's that General thing so
that means that like the Wilson's property you might not have to have a a voucher because the through the state funding they've made the rents lower correct correct and they they will have a mix that says okay this n amount of
people are have to be at 60% of the area meeting income this number of of apartments are available for people at 30% so that they can make their financial mix work but they will they will say we are looking for X number of
households in this range and X number of households in that range so um so that's the way a lot of that works and um and you know the wells um Street Shelter is going to be at 30% of area median income
or below so um all of those apartments are going to be for very lowincome folks yeah that's include people on disability and all that stuff absolutely absolutely do you know if the Wilson's project will continue even if the co-op drops
out I would expect it would I don't know that for a fact I don't think the co-op's going to drop out I think it's a question of how long they can wait to get this yeah can wait to do this and and you know whether their investors will allow that and they may have to do some more work on investors I think they
really want to move so or maybe they have some allowed construction that might makes you want to um yeah yeah yep I was just gonna ask Amy if any of these projects drop out could you just
try to remember to tell Tammy so she can let us know there's been a few times that b said something people at be like oh D that was cancel six months ago I sound like a fool you know I don't know about it I know if you remember if but if you hear something or
notifi something just us know going through this and going back and looking at the um housing study made me wish there is some fancy software out there that allows you to have on a website a sort of a map that you can keep updated you I don't know who the U is probably
me and I wish that we had something like that but I'd love to find a way to keep this sort of I update it once a month or something like that so yeah I'd be glad to let you know just not spreading false information saying oh yep yeah the
people like well I heard that oh sorry the other thing I would what I would say to councelor walaski and um and I think this goes to Stephanie's point being concerned about Federal funding um is that it all of the not all of these no
um a portion of these projects are a mix of affordable housing um but it is all Finance dependent and so if certain Finance funding streams change requirements or go away and are replaced with different ones that could change
the mix of what the units look like um so as of now this list to the best of my knowledge and again it's a thing that shifts um there is some market rate on here um there is far more affordable housing but affordable at a wide range
so I would think of it as attainable not affordable um and that honestly reflects the economic reality of building housing of the size that Greenfield can sustain in this current climate with this current funding picture uh the the other
thing you should be aware of is the affordable homes act which is the State's new Bond bill um which supposedly is going to put billions of dollars make billions of dollars
available for for the building of affordable housing um how that's going to play out considering on the E IC situation that the state is in right now could mean that while they've got they
they they've got the the leeway in terms of bonding to be able to go up to um to over six billion is that it yeah I think it's six billion I um that that it is possible that they don't fully Bond so that would also impact all of these
developments um that we're talking about that have affordable housing um requirements on them so it's it's always a moving Target sure yeah the other thing the other uh thing I would like to just talk about in definitions is naturally occurring affordable housing
which is just that I've got an apartment I'm going to keep my rents low basically you know i' I've I've had the same tenants for the last 20 years I'm going to keep my vent slow that kind of thing so that's that's naturally available affordable housing but it's not it's not
the same thing as what we talk about when we talk about the specifically affordable housing requirements and then we talk about market rate and market rate is you know this is what I want to charge do you want to pay it
yeah and I know for any Community VI vibrant you you need a mixture you know for because yeah and I think this list um it's certainly skewed towards the affordable but it is a a mixture of affordable and market rate and a mixture of some home ownership opportunities and
some rental opportunities and let me just say for us we are $30,000 under the state median income in Greenfield okay it doesn't matter the size of the family we're $330,000 under
it so what that means is that many of the people who are working full-time are working for the city are you know teachers firefighters they are off often their
their income is often under the affordable housing limit so it is possible that you could find that what we're talking about are people who you think oh they should be able to afford things no they're you know they've got a
a large family they're they've got a disabled spouse they've got you know they can't they can't Rise Above That level and so they they would be they would be eligible for this kind for we talk about affordability it's a really it's we're not just talking about the
poorest of the poor here we're really talking about a wide range of people um an individual I don't have the numbers in front of me but just to give you an idea an individual living alone the um the the area median income is is
somewhere in the $60,000 range yeah so any if they if they have if they have an income that is under that they're they're eligible for some level of subsidy depending on what what their income is so it you know because they're
looking at $30,000 they're looking at 13% of their income so let's say they make $60,000 they're looking at 20% $220,000 of their money go their money going into housing so just to kind of give you an idea and I'm happy to provide those
numbers for you if you'd like them they're in our housing study available on our Department's we no I think it's important to recognize that I I think we have a picture of what affordable person is and the reality is
very different yeah um and I think it's also helpful to lay the fears that what affordable housing looks like um because I think we have a picture of um you know slum highrise iy
and I don't think that's what any of these Builders are looking to build no I'd agree and that by the way includes the shelter the shelter the the the um the plans for the shelter are actually very nice including an outdoor patio and um
and trees and it's the plants are very really very nice yeah I mean I know that there studies that if they're build places where people want to be then people will
upkeep them and take good care of all that people dig leave I'm curious how we can help like this was in the housing study that was presented but how can we help more people have access to this information
or what can we do so more people like everybody watch the recording but I don't know like yeah how can we share this knowledge and I think some of the destigmatizing part be helpful too yeah I I isn't that the Perpetual
question um I I think engaging I I our housing study I know housing study sounds like possibly a very boring thing but we have an interactive version on our website that I do think actually is very user friendly and easy to read and does have most of these projects on it
um I'm happy to um I'm going to update it with a couple of notes from tonight but send this around so this updated version can go out um it also is just changing all the time so I think I'm just thrilled I think having us come and talk at meetings like this is a great
way of just keeping the conversation going and giving folks an opportunity to engage with us and the keep the side was different as you said when we started out some people there's so much conversation going on with something different things people get confused eily they do and
also things change even if you aren't confused on Monday seven things could happen before Wednesday and your whole understanding could change you know and housing financing is very complicated
and very difficult and it I mean I I I have a vague idea I've been doing this now for six years and I have a vague idea of what I'm doing and I you know and I think because of that and because the words the you know like a word like affordable is thrown around a lot it
makes people don't understand what what we're talking about and I've noticed that whenever we start having real concrete conversations where we are able to say this is what it means um people go oh okay this is not
this is not what I thought it was right you know and when we can show them you know drawings and show them photographs of of U of of housing they also that also makes it it better I mean we we we have the potential to have a
real exciting [Music] um change happening in Greenfield over the next you know five six seven years um you know and I think the the kind of construction you've seen at the library
is the kind of thing that we're really looking at for a lot of these houses and and I think that's exciting but we're also looking like at um at at Petty Plane Road or at 187 H Street we're looking at much more traditional housing that you would see anywhere in
Greenfield sure so it's a it's a real mix mix um yeah just there's there's one little comment I could make I mean recently I've just been hearing a bunch of just come up to me to find
places to live and then just being astonished with the prices like some of these like it's like a single bedroom is like 14,500 bucks and I'm like how can people afford that and I think another
thing um that a lot of constituents uh are concerned about is also where if we want an uptick in in our population and a vibrant uh Community we also have to
start thinking about where we want these people to work because it's I mean those things you can't just live in a place um right you also have to be able to provide for yourself and I think we should probably start doing a better
job of trying to find how we can collaborate those two I know there's been some projects that have been proposed about like um some retail or or or commercial activity on the first floor or something like that and then housing above it or some type of a
situation where the employees live upstairs and there's been different models that have been happening in other cities but um thank you guys for saying all this information I learned a lot today I just want to say that emphasis
on working with um employers is a great one and what I hear most often now actually are employers whose employe who are existing in green fields and their employees can't find a place to live the jobs are there but their employees are commuting from far away because there's
either nothing here or the little bit that there is here is too too expensive so I think that that partnership exists and but you're right that they go hand inand we can't just do one without the other absolutely and and the other thing is that you know in terms of the
apartment prices that were talking about um part of that is because we have so few vacant either homes for sale or apartments in in the community and so um landlords can charge what they want and
if people are desperate enough they will get it um part of the reason we've been concentrating a lot on affordability is because exactly that if we can get more housing that people can automatically afford the prices uh for rentals
elsewhere will start to go down because there's more competition but right now we're at a .1% vacancy rate a healthy vacancy rate is 5 to 7% just to give you an idea of how
difficult things are right now I did just know that talking about it I just did have a question um there's another thing that I've come across is that where at the same time
there's a lot of people that are unhoused there's also this phenomena where people have like too much housing and that it's there's like a giant house and it's like you know the kids have moved away and you have like an older person living there and it's like five
bedrooms or four bedrooms they don't need that but is there any in any of the uh developments that we're just discussing is there any that's like specifically for like older folks that could
potentially you know live in a community with people of their of their similar age and would have would be accessible and potentially free free up some of those uh single or multif family homes one of the things that I think is
true with a lot of these apartments is that they're open to anybody and I know myself I'm 79 years old okay I would I I look if I could find a place that would allow me to have my dog and I could I
could move I would probably move now but I can't find that place so if the these houses are if these apartments are available and if they are you know affordable then seniors regardless of
what their income is would be able to find those places I know of a number of people who have talked to me about this and said yeah I'm I'm ready you know I've I'm not I don't want to take care of a big house anymore but there is no place for them to go and um counselor
manhas what I've also heard none of these are strictly senior housing and I haven't heard anybody come looking at least talking to me about strictly senior housing but what I do hear all the time is accessibility and that if they were accessible units it doesn't
matter if it's not a just senior community and so um there are accessible units in many of these and we are trying to encourage developers when they come to us and talk about housing um to do what they can to make those units especially those first floor units fully
accessible regardless of who they expect that their anticipated tenant might be just so that um older folks who do want a downsize have a place to go and age in place right I have two questions um
one are there any resolutions ordinances from the city council that could help with housing and then my follow-up question is I know we're talking right now about first floor dwelling
especially in the Main Street area and uh the EDC committee is working with planning to revise that um because I think we're trying to be mindful of both um disability and accessibility
um but also not losing Main Street businesses and how to balance that so that might followup is you know just your thoughts on how to do that artfully um with the intention of sure um I think I I believe
it was proposed by councelor Gareth but I may be wrong the um amendment to zoning which allowed for first floor housing in commercial core but not on the active um Street face I think is a great way to go
about it because it preserves that ability to have first floor accessible living and it offers uh an opening for more um residential space in the commercial core and also preserves um a retail space that that to me um
felt like a really good way to balance those two I think the other thing is that you know since especially since the pandemic but even before um the question of retail as we've known
it is is kind of in flux and and so it if we can provide the kind of retail there that we need on first floors that will be something that involves walkability and in you know we then then
housing in those areas becomes much more valuable because it means that those those folks who are living downtown are the ones who are really creating and the support of the businesses downtown the other thing I should mention and it's something I've been talking with the GBA
about is we've got too much parking in town and we have you know when the parking study was done uh at no time even at the busiest time was more than more than 55% of the parking spaces in
town built there are private parking areas that are um are might be great places to put housing and that could be also first floor um commercial and Upper
Floor um residential and might be a really good possibility so we're not that you know while we we have some options here that we really need to explore more and um I'm I along with Erica geiz who is an architect
um are going to be at some point this spring I hope uh talking with Folks at the GBA about what are the options here because from my perspective the businesses are leaving money on the table um there are you know whether they want to be the the owner of that
property or they want to have a um some a developer come in and they will sell the land to a developer in either case there are some opportunities here that we we need to look at and it would also make the the city cooler um we wouldn't have you know we wouldn't have it you know it would be
environmentally much better for us as well so there are there are opportunities that we need to look at okay any other tools that you need from the city council to make housing easier in the future um once we find out how
many uh short-term rentals we have in town we're probably going to need we're going to need to look at a short-term rental ordinance um we right now um I was discussing with the mayor the possibility of trying to get a
full listing of what we have because we don't have one and uh what is what would a short-term ordinance be it it would it's airbnbs and verbos and those kinds of places so we're talking about places where it would be less than 30 days and
you know if there's a turnover and if right now we don't have a huge number in town no when I yeah apps I haven't like almost nothing pops up for Greenfield so yeah there's thir or on this air DNA it's like a site aggregator that to get
the data so we you know once we understand what that is but for instance in places like B buckin and shelburn they've already put in those kinds of ordinances because they're starting to see how housing that would be year round
housing becoming multiple short-term housing and that that kind of pressure on the hous Market would really be a problem for us so that and also in terms of the Adu um situation uh one of the
options is that to that to have make sure that um adus are not used as short-term rentals and so that's that's something that um you know will be coming up as well okay and that can be done now as
opposed to when we have to get the list and figure out what what all this means on my side I would say um I think we've had a lot of zoning go through relative to housing lately a lot and um
it's great and I love the conversation at a certain point I hope we can um take a pause because for developers who are looking to build um I think it's very challenging um to attract developers if they get the sense that your zoning um
changes every other day and so I understand why all of these are coming up now um but rather than more change I think I would advocate for for a pause at least as it relates specifically to things like zoning um and
housing other things great um other thing that I would mention is we have been talking to um councelor Brown and councelor Gordon about an affordable housing trust and we are working um in our office um and with some local
uh community members to see if that would be a tool that would make sense for Greenfield um how would that work what would that entail in a Elevate speech um so it would be a segregate it would be a way of capturing funds what funds is um
a big question some communities use Community preservation act funds other communities have used Aras other communities have used um private donations or Gifts of land I don't have that piece of the puzzle solved but it would be a way of of capturing those funds and putting them into a segregated
fund governed by a group of um folks appointed however you define them in the ordinance that city council would pass but typically appointed by the mayor who have expertise in finance and real estate and affordable housing um the and
it would allow them to do a wide range of things so some communities that have affordable housing trusts that are very well funded use them to purchase real estate they can move much more quickly than a municipality on its own can um and so they could acquire land and
preserve it other communities that um have smaller funds use them for things like um uh down payment assistance for low-income folks or rental assistance or um housing rehab it's just it's another tool um that affords municipalities in
certain situations um more flexibility to help with housing um the concern for me I I think that I think it's a great idea and want to see it move forward I just want to make sure before we move forward that we're not just taking funding that's already being
um used for housing and making it more complicated for folks to access so if there's if this is filling a gap um or can be a tool that would be useful I think it would be a great thing so sneak peek maybe we're talking about it
yeah I don't know if we want to get into it but there are potential funding streams like even a community this would be a smaller funding stream but a community impact fee on short-term rentals for a local excise tax for 3% which would probably not generate more
than like 20 25,000 but still just as an example rental assistance that kind of stuff that works yeah so it's just very preliminary conversation that has gone not much further than my desk at the moment but um I thought a worthwhile
conversation for our community to have something that I wanted to bring up in public and I know Susan you I think you know this how they work um but it's it's come up about um land trusts and specifically
Community Land trusts and what they are can you say out loud your understanding uh just so that who knows that better I know but um yeah I mean it is
a a pro a piece of land that is owned by a nonprofit entity that then rents out its land to others to build upon okay or they can do it themselves you know
that's also possibility what it does do is it keeps first of all it it it makes it so that the cost that if they do it for housing they can do it for housing that's rental they can do it for housing that's ownership if they do it for housing that's ownership the
people who buy the house own the house but not the land okay so it keeps it keeps the house more affordable first of all and secondly it has a li it limits what they can sell the house for in the future to keep that house affordable as
well so it's there there are a lot of different models Sarah knows the much much better than I do but the the idea is to if to take the land cost out of the equation and by doing that making making housing affordable on a different
on a different level whoever came up with the name wasn't thinking very well because it just it projects the wrong uh sense of what we're talking about in the old days when you hear W trust that meant buying a piece of property and
keeping it as land right right so people when they hear this and I just noticed that the last year so people get so upset about it because they're using the old definition and not understanding a new definition so often people call them housing trusts now to to try to
differentiate but it yeah but is a way of it's holding the land it's preserving the land for affordable housing um it's a different tool to do that like more than 40 years that here around here people think about Bill Cosby who B all
the land to preserve it yeah you know so people around here have that image of that and so they project that on this conversation that's why I think we're so upset with this particular issue you know so can I ask a question about how this
would affect our tax revenue stream if we are taking a million dollar property in the Landis and then giving it to the land trust because I think that when we have all these conversations about housing we're not really thinking about how does it affect our bottom line and
our service Revenue thank you nonprofits often pay taxes um when they have housing yes they have housing when they when they have housing on them they pay taxes the Community Builders
pays taxes the um uh the the regional the housing authority and and GHA all pay taxes um I'm sorry just because that contradicts what the assessor had said he had said that we had $300 million worth of
untaxable uh nonprofits in our town and that affects our bottom line by $6 million roughly so I I do have that concern and they're paying a tax they're paying a discounted rate so I just want to be very financially aware I was going
to say I would save that question for the assessor my office but he may been talking about the businesses the CSL outpatient building and that sort of stuff which is different it's also GCC but I don't want us to to take a wild
guest in a public meeting about we think maybe that taxability is right but I I can say with Assurance because I vote on them taxes are paid by the Greenfield housing authority and I know because I used to be on the Regional Housing Authority the P taxes are paid by the
Regional Housing Authority so those things I can had said yes Andy had said that they pay but they pay at a discounted rate that's correct so if we constantly bring in nonprofits or non taxable um entities you know all those
pennies we don't collect do add up to things we cannot fund absolutely yeah totally I would also just say some of the developers who are developing the affordable housing are not nonprofits also important to know they're for-profit developers who just happen to
be developing affordable housing because that's where the financing is some of them are you're absolutely right nonprofits Y and St the state actually encourages profit making developers to to do that what we need to do is is we need to en encourage them more to be out
here this this has not been as as as welcome a um an area for them as as others right and the only Community Land Trust project right now at Greenfield is the stone Farm so yeah there's a sec yeah it's the only
one doing housing production but there's another site that they own too green and and by the way Noble home is a for-profit developer yes yes so is a land taxable land is paying full property
taxes and um some communi interests um in ammer they have it so that it is a reduced um rate because of the resale restriction so they're taxing it based on the resale restriction so
that but that's up to the local assessor and right now that hasn't happened and um isn't in a like we haven't considered doing that and so it's just paying full property
taxes so I think we are coming to the conclusion of our discussion on housing so I want to thank um both that was great and Susan for spending the time with us and really uh going through the
all of the details it's really important and useful to have I know this seems like a small audience but you know again this you know this info will live on on the website and in the recording and but
also we have a bit more knowledge now so now when someone stops us before a meeting we can say well that's that r true or you know that sort of stuff any information we have the better we are as consors we have the knowledge our head to say wait a minute you know that sort
of stuff this whole an thing for me that re Reames it for me when I've been getting a lot of people go up to me and say hey and now I can explain well that's not really what it is yeah so understanding that you know and some of our counselors are also on the economic
development committee so you know can take that knowledge into thinking about zoning and development so thank you so much thank you so much for inviting us I'll come any time oh my gosh we appreciate app
hour that you're you know Center is going well too I guess if you wanted to just sure um the the warming Center it it's getting used far more than um I had anticipated uh because it's been so cold
and there is so much need um but it has been going well our community has stepped up um in ways that have really been wonderful to see yeah also Susan's 247 I know but I don't want to
presume I'm I'm very pleased to come anytime that you you need us just let us know if I councelor walaski if I get you the updated um chart and map or that me and and
CC Kathy and Tammy then they will make sure that it gets where it needs to go great go through Tam so it's not a violation of the open meeting law why I'm perfect great
technically thank you great um so the the last uh order of business that I wanted to bring up to this committee and this is just the beginning of the conversation but um how do we want to use this
committee what other conversations do we want to have about I I I I see one of the ways we can move forward with the committee as as there are things that are kind of in the public discussion we
can have them here yes and so we can both be nimble and schedule stuff as it happens right but also in foresight like what you know what are some things that are bubbling up that we would ask to be
here thank you very much so um counselors if there are things that you think we should put on future agenda pleas name them oh right now or just well yeah there's something that comes to
mind please throw out there I guess it's more of a question is like other committees can make policy and does this committee have a scope that it can make policy within or are we more like I don't totally understand that yeah we
can yeah we can I have go back and look at the actual description of the community but it's mostly to listen and to involve the community and whatever's going on as far as this this is only the third time we've met since I've been out it's year it's so it's not been the most
active no and it it was like the committee that we put people on um who were on Ways and Means because they're really busy on ways and means so this was going to be an easy committee um I don't think that's fair to the public oh
I agree uh you know so I've also heard one suggestion was that there would be uh like maybe it's quarterly but a chance for sort of public comment
hearing by different like districts or precincts so you would have you know maybe the meetings from now until whatever would be a certain number of count because you also have to worry about open meeting and not having Quorum
of the council so you could say like okay counselors for districts one two are this month and so we like we don't have to do too many of them as one of the ideas
that's sort of President walosi um I just wanted to say that that's what they did last year or the year before last I mean so this is the first community relations meeting that I've been able to attend because they did one two and three four five and six but they never
did seven eight and nine and and what they did with they they had brought those three counselors in from those precincts and I believe the at llarge counselors were they could or could not attend but as long as the Quorum wasn't there um and it was somewhat an open
discussion about things that were happening in the precincts that were there that's just what I recall from the last time thank you also in November we had a half a room full year we did yeah in the minutes you read the minutes there was a lot of people and they all seem to be pleased to have the
opportunity to to talk and and people felt good about just having the opportunity to say what they want to say which felt kind of good it was kind of a directed conversation so it wasn't all over the place right you know so if we have a theme I think it's a it can help
you know manage the meeting and keep it kind of manageable well I'm open to suggestions of themes um for you know as we come into subsequent months I'm also looking at a ad hoc committee special appointment for some of the unhoused
issues um to continue that conversation I've heard about safety concerns at the library so um you know being able to have a container for those discussions um that isn't necessarily this committee but part of kind of a charge coming out
of so well the pring seven has a contining fairg grounds issue and now the cell phone tower thing which is playing out in the zoning appeals thing we'll see how that plays out that's probably a non-starter until it's decided but the even at last week's
council meeting we had a couple people from the fairgrounds pr7 addressing their concerns and stuff again so no matter what happens no matter what strides are made by the fairgrounds I think that's going to get me ongoing the prein seven neighborhood group is BR a noise ordinance so that's
GNA be coming to us is is that like maybe one of the discussions on noise because you've got roosters you've got fairgrounds you've got um the marijuana growing in my district uh and if they haven't
presented the noise or what they have so far I could invite the chair or the person who's now overseeing that they come here and talk to us about theyve I have to say they're doing a great job they're researching it they're going to other towns they're looking at other ordinances they've listen they talk to the police chief and the fire chief they
understand what they can do and cannot do what's leg it's not legal so I think they're going to present with us a pretty interesting ordinance when they get to that point okay so that would be kind of interesting to see because I also see this committee as sort of the
incubator like we can have some conversations so that you can test it before it's a full-blown ordinance because you don't want to like have it then in writing and before the full Council right um when there might be you know some
tweaking sure sure I have to say I started off in the wrong foot because my first meeting with them was that stuff I we didn't commit because I didn't know what they were talking about and so right from the start I was already a shot horse because I lost their trust and so it's taking me all this year to
slowly build back to trust and say yes I hear you yes I understand yes I'm with you but that that's an example how one mistake can really you know hamper you as a effective counselor because you have to earn the trust back and build the trust that sort of stuff
but so anything anything anything we can build trust within this room is a good positive thing okay so our next meeting is March 17th 2025 here in this meeting room zoom
and hybrid unless otherwise posted can I have a motion for adjournment for adjournment okay and a second oh all right so um councelor Brown yes councelor
Minos yes councelor Perry yes yes for me thank you Stephanie foring speak it's very easy there's only one person Stephanie I appreciate it I really do thanks all right have a good night
you all of you [Music]