We were talking about that. A little deja vu. We put them there. Reporting in progress. Good evening everyone and welcome to the Armor Select Board Affordable Housing Workshop uh being held today on April 22nd, 2025 at 6 PM in the Yarmouth Town
Hall hearing room on 11:46 Route 28 South Yarmouth Mass. Um we are open to Zoom. Uh if you would like to participate, just go ahead to the uh Yarmouth um website and there will be instructions for how to do that. This
will be a workshop, so this will be different than what you usually see for a select board meeting. And I want to start by welcoming all of our participants for tonight. Thank you all very much for joining us. Um, I'm looking forward to the discussion and
I'm looking forward to all that I can learn tonight and I'm going to turn it over at this point to uh Bob, our um town administrator. Thank you, Madam Chairman. Um, my deepest thanks to the select board for organizing um our
stakeholders meeting this evening for an affordable housing workshop. Our first order of business is I would like to um call to order a meeting of the affordable housing trust. Um we have a posted meeting this evening to participate in the discussion uh with
the select board and we also have the uh community housing committee here and I would um entertain their calling to order as well. Yeah. Recognizing a quorum. Um, the chair would like to open the
April 22nd meeting u joint meeting between the select board uh affordable housing committee and the um and the the housing and the uh town Yarmouth housing committee.
That's great. Now we're we're all legal. I also um need to do a call vote just because my receptive for us is so we've got some we've got some remote participation and let's announce that that first um um on behalf of the
affordable housing trust um we we have uh remote participant um Myra Suchinis who uh because of geographic uh disparity right now is um with us remotely. So, uh, we'll take a roll call
vote to come to order. And I would say Myra here. Bob Lton here. Mark Forest here. Robert Written here. So, we're um, you have a quorum. We're in order. You have to do the same. Housing committee will
also do a roll call vote. Uh, Drew here. John. Yes. Lee here. Uh, Greg here. Uh, Deerra here. Myra here. Palm here. Okay.
Bob, one thing I did overlook, we should say the pledge of allegiance before we start. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. Thank you. Well, it's great to see all all of these um familiar faces. Um and no need to go around and introduce um folks because everyone's got their their name tags.
Um, I I want to before I um um move things along, um I I really want to highlight um and thank um specifically our um housing co coordinator Mary Wagan for um all of her efforts, not only on an ongoing basis, but to pull this all
of this together. Um it really has been a fabulous year for for Mary and and she's been doing this for for so long. It is um just amazing to work with her and have her here. So our deepest thanks also to to Mary for organizing everything and um so you know we welcome
everyone. This is obviously a great opportunity for all of the various stakeholders, representatives of the public to get together and to update each other and share information on housing strategies uh so that we can all
talk about what the the major initiatives are for the town, what direction that we're going. Um and um in in doing so uh we've also brought together our
um consultants on this. Um yes, Mary. Oh. Oh, and we have members from the Yarmouth Housing Authority. We have Wendy Olsen who's the executive director of the Yarmouth Housing Authority. Bambi Wyatt Rosario who's the chair of their commission. And of course, Drew Krauss
who is a board member of the housing authority and their representative to our housing. That's great. Now, we don't have a full quorum of the the housing authority. So, what's a quorum? Joe Glenn is on. He's just observing. He's not participating.
Is this a posted meeting? No. He was going to go on and watch it live instead. Okay. Okay. So, participate with that. Um, what I' I'd like to do is turn over. We've got some very substantive agenda
items uh with us this evening and um it it starts with um an update on our short-term rental study. And um you know communities such as Yarmathol, seasonal communities really have um had an impact
based on the um housing that it has such whether it's short-term rentals, seasonal housing. It has a very big impact on our existing housing stock in communities and and a lot of what the thought process planning that's ongoing
in terms of affordable housing here in Yarmouth is not focusing on on new housing but the existing housing stock that we have in our community which you know really uh takes a lot of challenges based on some of these seasonal issues.
And um one of our um major initiatives that the housing trust has been working on over the past year is to put together um this detailed study of the short-term rental market and what potential impacts
that that's having on our housing here in the community in terms of setting up potential competition for seasonal versus yearround housing. Um and and how that all works. And in order to assist us in really getting our arms around
this and developing some actionable uh recommendations for how best to deal with this, um we've gotten together working with the select board funded um a study by the University of Massachusetts Danahue Institute into the um seasonal housing and short-term
rentals in Yarmouth. And we have with us Kerry Spritzer from the Danahghue Institute that um is initiating the study and she's going to give us a sort of a detailed analysis of her scope and information that she's found and and
hopefully that'll foster some very good discussion here on some of these seasonal housing issues and how that impacts existing housing stock. So, um Carrie, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Um, it's a pleasure to be here today. I'm sorry, I don't see an
option to turn on my video, but um, if somebody can enable that, I'm happy to. Um, so I have a slide deck here that I've shared um, with your team. Are folks seeing the I Hi.
Um, should I just suggest when I'd like them to advance if that works for folks on the call? Yes. Yes. Okay, great. So, um this is the that's the beautiful UMass Ammeris campus um where our offices are located. And my name is um Carrie Spitzer. I'm a senior research
manager at the UMass Donahghue Institute. Um I work in the economic and public policy research group at the Donahghue Institute. And we've been working throughout the state on housing issues. um in particular um we've been doing quite a bit of work um related to
short-term rentals um both on the Cape but also um on the islands as well and and honestly um we just finished up some work for the statewide housing plan as well that dealt with seasonal communities. So, um, if you advance to the next slide, I just wanted to give
folks, um, broad overview of the study. Here you'll see the town of Yarmouth. Um, and the little green dots represent properties that are part of, um, the portfolio of properties that are
either on, um, VBO, vacation rental by owner, or Airbnb. Um, so that's that image there and we're going to be using that data along with a bunch of other data sources to really try to inform um conversations in the community about
short-term rentals and seasonal housing. The goal, as was just stated, is to provide reasonable um and actionable recommendations for for the team. So, we're going to do this through um a kind of four big buckets of of analysis. We're going to be doing quantitative
data collection and analysis um key informant interviews that I'm hoping to kick off soon and may involve many members of of um the audience or the the the people who are in the room right now. Um we'll also be doing um some scenario analysis
to kind of understand how would certain um types of regulations potentially impact the town of Yarmouth and then we'll be writing up a final report and doing a summary presentation. So if you move to the next slide, you know, this just kind of visualizes the timeline. So we kicked off um early 2025. And I'm I
think on your slides you might be seeing 2015. That was a typo on my part. I know we're we're in 2025 without time traveling. Um so right now, you know, we've done a lot of the quantitative data collection and primarily um pulled a ton of census data. We also have administrative data. I'll get into all
the sources in a moment. Then we're going to move into kind of more the qualitative phase of the study where we're going to be doing a literature review, interviews with stakeholders. Um that I'll take time to analyze and make sense of. We'll be drafting a report over the summer and then delivering that report in the
middle of September of this year. So sorry about that typo. Um I'll give you a high level overview of the different data sources we're using. So, um the American Community Survey from the US Census Bureau that provides really rich um demographic data and also some
housing indicators such as um cost burden and I'll get into that more. Um the US Census Bureau population estimates are kind of the go-to source for understanding um how the population's changed over time. ES202 data comes from the state and has to do
with um issues around labor and workforce. from the Department of Revenue. Um we're able to get their um list of properties that have been registered um for you know um some properties
receive do not need to pay the tax, but any place that has over 15 days a year of um short-term rental um needs to be registered and um pay taxes to the Department of Revenue. So we have have that data source which is it's a really rich data source and gets um at kind of
where places are located and it captures places that may or may not may may not be using sources like um tools like Airbnb or VBO to rent out their data. Airbn data is a really neat source that we've used in the past. Um it scrapes
the web for Airbnb and um VBO listings. So that's a great resource for understanding prices. um where places are located and um kind of intensity of use. So we triangulate that with the D
um the department of revenue data. Um we also get data from the warrant group um on sales and um transactions of homeowner home ownership units in the community. The US postal service data we can look at for um some trends in migration.
um Department of um Housing and Urban Development has some great data on things like transportation access. And then we've also um we're using municipal data to understand um more detailed um registration data on the short-term rentals. So, here's
another um overview of the key variables that we're going to be looking at. Um, and we do have some initial findings. I want to say like we've we've pulled all of this data. We're still making sense
of it. As you can see, it's it's a lot of variables, but I'll just um show you some highle key findings that we've seen so far. Maybe that that'll help um kick off your conversation. Although you may be very well aware of these trends already, but it's always nice to have the data to back them up. So, um, we
looked at, um, we broke the community into South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth, and Yarmouth Port after conversations with Mary and her team. Um, but we're also going to present, um, in all these slides the data on the whole town of Yarmouth. That's the Yarmouth combined slide. So you can see we've seen um
growth in the population which is you know in um in line with what we've seen on Cape Cod as um folks have moved out to the Cape after and during the pandemic. Um but you'll see the number of households has actually grown even even more and
that's in line with some of the trends we're seeing throughout the state. So, um, even in some places where the population is declining, you're seeing a growth in households because as people, um, age, they form smaller households, just one or two person households. And
we're seeing also millennials kind of break out on their own and start to form their own households. So, some of its demographic u shifts over time. Now, the median household income in Yarmouth is slightly lower than the county and state, but you can see there's um significant variation
among the communities. And over time we've seen a growth in income. However, um at the same time we're also seeing um increase in cost burden. Here I just focus in on renters because renters are often the most likely to experience housing cost burden. And just as a
reminder um the department of housing um and urban development defines cost burden as um spending greater than 30% of your income on housing. And that's kind of what is used as the general rule of thumb for affordability. So if you're spending more than that then um it's
considered that your your housing is unaffordable. So you can see that um we've seen an increase in Yarmouth um over time and also that Yarmouth is experiencing um it looks like and I I say looks like because these bars are
the error bars. So they um you know as um as many of you may know with with the census you know it's it's um with the American community survey data we're taking a sample so the sample's smaller in the town of Yarmouth. So that's why you're seeing these bigger and bigger error bars as you go down to smaller and
smaller places. But the trend overall is we're seeing increase in cost burden partic particularly among renters and um it also varies somewhat by community type but or by by neighborhood but it's hard to say if that's significant
because the error bars are so great. Um and then we also looked um from at the American Community Survey data you can um look at seasonal vacancy. So we wanted to look as you all know Barnstable County has a much higher rate of seasonal vacancy um than the rest of
the state. you know, well over almost um well over 30% across the cake. And one of the things that I think is interesting to note is it's actually dropped down a little bit. And I think that's large part driven by the what we said during the pandemic with folks moving out to the Cape full-time. And
it'll be interesting to see how that trend goes um kind of as we go further and out out past the pandemic. Um, and you'll see also it varies significantly across communities and and West Yarmouth has the highest share of seasonal seasonal vacancies.
Are you guys advancing? I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you to advance on the slide right now. No, no problem. Mary's controlling it. Great. Great. You guys are doing a great job. I'm sorry. I just don't have that visual. So, so next step. So, that's that is just like we've pulled a lot more data, but I was told
we had 10 minutes. So those are highle pieces of information. So the next stage and this is the part where we're moving into is we're going to be doing key informant interviews. Um these are some of the entities and groups that we've just identified that we'd like to
interview. We've designed a a survey or not a survey, an interview guide and we're going to be going out and interviewing folks hopefully at least you know somebody from each one of these buckets maybe multiple people from each one of these buckets and the goal here
is to really you know that the American Community Survey and all that quantitative data can only tell you so much um about a community. We believe it's really important to get out there and talk to folks. So what we're hoping is that these interviews will help ground the work and the specifics of
Yarmouth um understand better the potential impacts of different regulations and also what's the appetite for some of these regulations. Some of them may not you know fly um in the community and also to get some insight from talking to local community members about some of the history um in of
short-term rentals in the community and and to help make sense of the trends that we're seeing in the quantitative data. So what we do is we'll record all the interviews. We'll um transcribe them and also use the tools um such as um Envivo to code the interviews to
identify key themes that'll hopefully come through and then we'll share those back with the with everyone through the report. Um and then the final step is this short-term rental scenario analysis analyses. So, we've identified a few
um potential short-term um rental regulation scenarios. Um there's quantitative unit caps where a fixed number of permits um or based on a percentage of the housing stock. You can, you know, set this um above or below the current um permit count
depending on a town's need. This was used in the town of Vale, Colorado, for example, and they set a limit of 25% of existing housing unit stock in 2022. Um, which was around 900 units and above the number of permitted short-term
rentals at the time. So, that's what quantitative unit caps refers to. We also will look at potential zoning regulations. So, this would be something where like short-term rentals were permitted only in certain zoning districts such as designated resort zoning districts or you could do a numeric cap on permits that varies
between the districts. Um, other options are restricting number of nights or rental um instances. So, this would be permitting owners to short-term rent only a certain number of times per year, either by implementing a limit on how
many times a unit can be rented annually or on a total number of nights rentals can occur. Um, this could also require um a minimum number of nights. For example, a short-term rental must be rented for periods of a week or more.
Um, you could also um restrict short-term rentals to owner occupied homes. Um, for example, in Great Bington, Mass, there have been limits on short-term rentals to one per person, and it bans corporate ownership. Um, although the town does allow LLC's
ownership. So, that's one example. Um others could be restricting to single family homes. Um sometimes do not allow short-term rentals in multif family dwellings or um accessory dwelling units. Um for example, this is uh
regulation in place in Truckucky, California near Lake Tahoe. Um so those are the types of things we're going to be looking at. also through the interviews if we hear of other regulations that people are interested in us exploring we could
definitely um take those up um as we as we go. If you move on to slide 16 this is just some of the um data we've already gathered. So um just for some background information um so there are
1438 units that are registered with the department of revenue. Now, those blue units are those that are exempt either um because they are are it's not that they're exempt. We've we think they pose
um less of a put less stress on the local community. So they could either be exempt because they're being rented out for fewer than 15 days or they are owner occupied and they have like just a room being rented out whereas the rest of the unit is still
being um occupied by an owner. Those 12,600 um sorry 1264 units are um those that I think are the more traditional short-term rentals that people think of. So they're more than 15 days. they're not um owner occupied and um you know
it's that style where you're renting out a whole house or a whole apartment um on a site or it could be through a real estate agent. So then we broke down and looked at um where are these located. So you can see the majority are in uh West
Yarmouth but quickly short right behind that are South Yarmouth and then Yarmouth Port. And then we dived into the air DNA data um and looked at the trends over time. And you can see this is not um really unique to to Yarmick but right during
the pandemic there's actually a decline in the number of people who are renting out through sites such as Airbnb and um VBO and often that was because people were moving into their second homes and and using them more intensely themselves personally or may have been
uncomfortable during the pandemic. So, it's not just in Yarmouth, but you're you're seeing this across the Cape that there is kind of a dip in in short-term rentals. Um, yeah. Great. So, and then, um, we've also seen kind of the trends over time
with the rates. It's been pretty steady, um, but declining slightly in 2024. Though, I'll note that for that year, we have the data through June 2024. So, it's possible that rates were higher in in August. It's it's a partial year. And then you can look at the breakdown of
units where those on AirDNA, Airbnb and VRBO are generally um larger, three bed, four bedroomedroom units. So those are the initial findings and the plan for the study. I'm happy to take any questions if that was part of
the design here or um just sit back and listen. Thank you so much. My contact info is on the last slide if anybody wants to reach out directly. Does anyone have any questions that they would like to um Carrie, a wonderful presentation. Thank you. Um does anyone
have any questions for Carrie? I do. I just have a couple of quick questions. I know um your scope was in there, but I'm not sure if you have had the opportunity yet to look at our zoning bylaw and our AD ADU bylaw and have um any thoughts or
suggestions in terms of um you know how it compares. Um that is definitely going to be something we're going to do. We've pulled those documents. Um, I don't think we've had a chance to really um, process or analyze them enough to have
recommendations at that time at this time. Are there any other questions for Carrie Joyce? Carrie, uh, thank you very much. Um, I wondered if you have any sense of how, uh, AirDNA might miss some rentals.
Um, I have the odd feeling that there are people who rent out their houses, you know, for weeks or months in the summer, but that aren't registered anywhere. Um, that is certainly um a concern with
using any of the data sources. So, we we triangulate because we know that not not one of the data sources is perfect. So, with the Airbnb and VBO sites, you're missing out on, say, somebody who's been coming to the same house every week or a couple of weeks, every year, and their
family is just dealing directly with the owner. Um, we're also missing out on anything where there's a real estate agent who doesn't use um those websites to advertise the properties. And we know from our work um in places like Nucket and um Province Town that those are, you
know, not an insignificant share of the properties. Um the nice thing is that the AirDNA is hopefully giving you a good sense of like kind of what the market price is for a unit um in the community, but obviously we are missing out on on some data with the Department
of Revenue data. Um that often has a higher count of overall number of properties. So hopefully um you know it's more likely that a property will be there, but it has no information about how much it's being rented for or how
intensely it's it's being used. So that's the downside of the Department of Revenue data. But I um I also know that Yarmouth has its own registration. So we're we're kind of taking all three of these pieces and putting them together. Um but you're right, we're not going to
get 100% coverage with any one of these sources. Sharon, thank you. Hi. Um, I was wondering your slide did not have anything about uh the scenario for short-term rentals to suggest some type
of restrictions uh would be about taxation. And I've read a little bit that there are some taxation ideas that may curb and we'd be happy to look at those um as well in our analysis if um
yeah we could definitely look at taxation. There's no reason we couldn't. Norma, you have a question? Uh yes I do. Um I saw among the uh stakeholders uh I did not see a um a plan to interview any of the people that are actually renting
the owners. In other words, um I was in that situation for the first 5 years that we owned our home. The only way here uh we lived in Vermont at the time. The only way we could afford to own the home and meet our future plans was to
rent during the summer. So if there are all kinds of restrictions placed, people won't become uh residents and homeowners in the future. We're definitely open to um interviewing
um anybody who owns a short-term not anybody, but a stakeholder who owns owns a short-term rental. That's something we've done in our other projects in in places like Province Town. I just have one other thought. Um, you
talk a lot about like the restrictions. Um, I wonder if you've seen it or you could research seeing it. One of the things we've talked about in our board is instead of restricting it, incentivizing yearround rentals. And if
you can um or will be able to bring any of those uh suggestions or successes forward to us where um you know I envision some type of incentive um instead of restricting people but incentivizing people to to rent year
round. Yeah. And you'll see that policy has actually been or a policy to incentivize year-round rentals has been implemented in um Provincetown, Massachusetts. Um, and we've been pretty familiar with
the work out there. So, we'd be happy to look at that. Excellent. Approach as well, Madam Chair. Yes, Mary Wagan. So, I just want to reiterate that when this came up during the final days of reviewing our housing production plan, we talked about looking at the impacts
of short-term rentals on our housing market and assumed it was all negative. Right? So when we brought the draft HPPP to the planning board, the planning board said, "Oh, there's some benefits to short-term rentals, too." So it really changed the uh theme of the whole
effort to identify what are the costs, what are the benefits to minimize the costs and amplify the benefits. So we have that. Thank you for talking about regulations versus incentives because that brought up like I didn't say that in the beginning that the whole purpose
of this is to amplify the benefits and mitigate the costs associated with short-term rentals. Thank you, Mary. Madam Chair, go ahead. Um I have a question in terms of uh the Province Town study that you're alluding
to. It's completed. Is that true? Yeah, there was a short-term rental study led by one of my colleagues. I think it was completed in 2022 or 2023. Um
Okay. So, just towards the end of the the pandemic. Yep. And um it where is that available? Um I believe it's available on our website. I can definitely connect with Mary to share it out if that might be
helpful to all of us. Sounds like a a work that is going to that is help leading this work. You're you're referring to it enough times we probably should acquaint ourselves with it. Um, thanks. Are there any other questions for
Carrie? I guess we could also I could also ask are are there any other studies going on on the Cape Province Town Yarmouth. So Carrie I it's Mary again and I haven't had a chance to really touch
base with you but I I was at a meeting where the Cape Cod Commission was presenting the regional housing strategy and they had announced that they are going to do a study of short-term rentals for the county. So I have to make sure that the Cape Cod Commission
knows that UMass is helping Yarmouth and vice versa because there might be some sharing of data. Excellent. That's good to know. And I've worked closely with the Cape Cod Commission on some other projects. So, but I was not aware they were doing a short-term rental study. I
think the uh Capecock uh the Assembly of Delegates has also alluded to its own um version of a study. I'm hoping it's the same one. Okay. I'm hoping that's the funding source and the commission is is
the regional planning commission is doing the study. So, like usual, but I will find out all over it. Thanks, Mary. Carrie, thank you so much for participating today. Uh we certainly are going to look forward to your uh future
work on this project. Well, thank you very much and I look forward to talking to some of you through the interview process. So, take care. Bye-bye now. Bye. Okay, Bob. Thank you very much, Carrie. Much appreciated. And so, board members,
anyone on that list can expect to to be contacted and look forward to, you know, incorporating your interview into the study process. And our next item on the agenda is uh an update from our affordable housing trust. And I thought
I'd back up just a little bit and and maybe talk about explain exactly what our housing trust is, the types of things that we do, and then I'd like to get into some of our major initiatives that um we've been working on the past year and we look forward very much to
working on with the upcoming year. And um essentially we have in Yarmouth an affordable housing trust that was established back in 2007. Uh it was a town meeting vote provided for there's the municipal affordable housing trust
fund bill chapter 491 of the act of 2004 and that provides the entire legislative basis for having um an affordable trust. And the purpose of an affordable housing trust is to provide for the creation and
preservation of affordable housing to benefit low and moderate income households in our community. And the reason for a trust, it is um a flexible and innovative tool that was established by the Commonwealth um to help create
housing opportunities and funding opportunities that needed action more quickly than our um annual budget process. um oftentimes with the availability of property as it comes up with the availability of potential
developers to achieve housing projects that um you need to move forward a little quicker than our um cycle of having two town meetings every year. So the affordable housing trust is a flexible mechanism for stimulating that
type of um discussion and maybe moving things forward and then coming to to town meeting at the appropriate uh times there. Now, in um the affordable housing situation for Yarmouth, the town has set
the goal um of having at least 10% of its year-round housing stock uh qualified as affordable. And um here we we have um made I think good progress toward that 10% goal. We're currently
about halfway there. So approximately 5% of the housing stock in Yarmouth can be considered um affordable at this point and and that was about three less than 3 and a half% in 2010. So it's you know
slow progress but it is is very measurable progress that's uh being made and uh the affordable housing trust throughout these years has played a critical role um since being established. the trust has created or
preserved 191 units. So, that's quite a contribution. And um we currently have uh a number of projects that are in the pipeline. And I think the the one that we're um most proud of, we spent the last year working with um Habitat for
Humanity to uh put together, we um have a mixeduse housing and it's a um home ownership opportunity program um out on 1121 Route 28 where um we had some housing sites that were separated from a
a commercial development um and were able to um work with Habitat to provide some real um ownership opportunities for our community. And um so that is a a project that is significant and we're looking forward to moving forward with.
Um in 2025 coming from 2024, we've spent quite a bit of time um obviously working with uh the Donahghue Institute to um set up and fund the short-term rental study. Um we're also going to hear about
um this evening a little bit our support for the Madaks utilization committee as they consider the most advantageous use of the former Madakis um school. And um we have a number of other
initiatives and that are um ongoing and and this year one of the key initiatives that we wanted to bring to the forum and really introduce for um our stakeholder team is the the focus that we've developed on working with the the town's
existing zoning that's in place to try to help stimulate mixeduse village style development targeting some of the grayfield sites and blighted areas in our community that um are located along
the Route 28 corridor and over years have been starved of private investment. And um this initiative feeds directly into the town's local comprehensive planning
efforts and uh the zoning efforts that the planning board has really spearheaded over the the past um many years. And uh what we're doing is is to try to work to better implement some of the village style mixeduse zoning that
we have in place now and also stimulate additional study as we move forward with a process to update the town's local comprehensive plan. Um, how are we articulating that vision for not only the creation of housing but the
stimulation of economic investment in the village style development, mixeduse development that the town uh would like to see along its economic corridor. Um in in order to help those planning efforts directly, uh the affordable
housing trust provided this past year matching funds um for a state community planning grant that is also dovetailed with the appropriation that we have for the local comprehensive plan to um specifically promote mixeduse
development to facilitate positive coordinated growth of both housing and yearround employment. Um, and this study is ongoing. In your packet, um, we're very happy to see we received an update
from our our planning staff that we have the Yarmouth site land development services village scale mixeduse proposed site development services. And so, um, one of the the key economic studies in addition to a market analysis for our
downtown corridor is this mixeduse analysis that will hopefully um, we hope to see identify, you know, some specific um, properties, strategies, um, areas that we can best govern our efforts to stimulate private investment. um at the
same time creating housing and um I want to um acknowledge uh uh Bill Scott, Kathy Williams and along with Mary have been working very hard on that. And we have Jay Grandandy with us this evening that um I don't know if everyone has met yet. And he's our interim economic
development coordinator. Um and he brings with him a boatload of experience um in mixeduse development uh putting projects together stimulating private investment um along public um thorough
affairs um in communities throughout Massachusetts. So, it it's very helpful to begin to to put together between the consultants, our planning team, and to have the uh affordable housing groups work to support those efforts. Um and in
also implementing some of these strategies, uh one of the projects that the trust has specifically implemented and we're developing um a little bit of a track record with, but we'd like to see this planning work help, you know,
really supercharge these efforts is we've implemented a grayfield and blighted property forgivable loan program that is designed to outreach reach owners and developers of some of
the blighted properties in town with pre-engineering assistance. that we feel if we can get into their planning process for future developments early enough that um we could use our additional funding to help do the
planning study that's necessary to provide quality housing opportunities along with mixeduse economic development that will help bring employment into our community and support higher wages um
and economic activity. as well as having that village style housing and and that's a critical uh I think goal of the zoning that was implemented and it's one of the projects that um we're really trying to push and
and I think a lot of it was in response to um the standard 40B applications that we see you know one after another where um there's a lot of developers that that really um you know aren't as
sophisticated in putting together more complicated mixeduse, commercial, and housing. Uh, developments that use smart growth. Do things such as um, you know, we're looking at concepts like the historically themed architectural cues
for a commercial business up closer to Route 28 as opposed to having that sea of parking. and to have tastefully uh parking kind of in the rear associated with some housing development that creates a site that has the the visual
sort of village feel um that we want to see, but also the economic vigor that we need to kind of create jobs in our community. And um a lot of times the developers of property, people that are looking to to make investments, they
see, you know, the 40B route as the the shortcut that, you know, we'll just bypass the zoning because the community hasn't reached its 10% yet. And it makes us very vulnerable to these types of just housing developments that might not
give the town what it needs in terms of trying to stimulate that economic activity. And if you know we feel if there is new development along the corridor, we want to see it along the lines uh in that model that the planning board has identified and we're
continuing to study. And um so what um you know that is is an example of how the trust can use some of its um financing, some of its ability to act between town meetings to step in and do
it in an incentive based way um that will um help developers come to the table. We've got really quite a team and um Mary does a great job in sort of being the gatekeeper on this process to try to bring developers to the table. We
um have uh you know a couple of folks we're talking to now. Obviously, one of the issues with our local comprehensive plan is since the village mixeduse zoning was put into place, it hasn't been a tool that's attracted a tremendous amount of of development and
mixed use investors and and I think a lot of those problems were associated with not having the infrastructure to support this type of development in our community, which is all changing as well and and why it's so important. And um I I I think that gives you maybe some
examples of how we're using the trust to dovetail. We're not out there um on a limb. We're trying to be uh you know the knitting needles that sort of knits together um all of the the housing needs with the economic needs with the planning that's going on in the
community and to help push to stimulate that the articulation of that vision that we can bring to the community and hopefully generate some more um support and um I don't know if any of the members want to sort of chime in on but
but I think that gives you a good flavor of where our thinking is currently. Does anyone have any questions for Bob Norm? I think a lot of good comments, Bob. And you know, it's it's good to hear about
the Affordable Housing Trust coming up with a innovative plan. Uh but I guess I've always been puzzled by the fact that, you know, we keep saying there's there's not enough housing. There's not enough housing yet.
There seems to be a disconnect with developers. I mean, you would think if we if we don't have enough housing and prices are skyhigh, why aren't developers rushing in to fill that void? What What is the disconnect there?
That is it the infrastructure? I mean, you alluded to that, Bob. I think that's that may be part of the issue in the in mixeduse development that you know they they didn't have um uh wastewater so they couldn't develop a higherrise or
something like that uh with apartments and and so forth. Is that the only thing that's standing in the way? Yeah, between um and we've attended the you know there's regional seminars that have been ongoing on identifying exactly
um what those obstacles are and you know they they bring up uh the the lack of infrastructure the um additional regulations that exist uh on Cape Cod and and another issue that a lot of developers talk to us about um is the um
access to capital um primarily ly for the um economic development portions that you know right now there's no financing anywhere for um any retail um type of uh developments and it's very
difficult with the the projects that that come in. We see the um access to capital largely for housing funded through the state completely separate from economic development funding. And it's been very difficult to get a
developer that can bridge that gap and come in with a a package of financing on the um economic development side and also on the housing. Um so you know we have had some of the 40BS uh you know come in and and you know we we haven't
been um you know very aggressive on on those. We're we're trying to look for the more um village oriented, but um I I I think that I I would say moving forward with the completion of the um the comprehensive plan and and I think
uh a stronger vision articulated by the town, we have the wherewithal to address some of the regulatory issues and um certainly u it's a major financial boon to have that infrastructure there. uh and the um investment in public
infrastructure I'm certain will stimulate private investment. Um the access to capital piece um I I think that you know that's a continuing challenge that remains to be seen as to you know where that is going to be headed over the next several years. Is
that something the affordable housing trust Norm could you step to the mic please so folks can hear? Um, yeah, it's the first time I've heard that that uh uh comment about the uh uh excess of capital, especially with
trying to develop retail. Uh, in other words, they just can't come up with projects that make sense to financing uh authorities. So, I don't know if the affordable housing trust uh can um get involved in that or if there are other
entities within within the town uh that can help uh private developers uh bridge that gap with capital and there's re regional um assistance in that regard as well and I know a lot of the banks we've attended the seminars we've talked about
capital and um so there's a lot of that thought going on and there there's a lot of need for um you know smart local business minds too to to get involved in that. So I'm I'm hoping you could kind of continue to follow us along very closely. Madam Chair, I have a a question.
Certainly. So um is this in fact I think some of you have this in your package. Is this a response to your solicitation? No, this this is a a response to the um with um Bill and the community
development uh department getting together um put a successful grant together for a local community planning grant um and I think that was about 100,000 and um we matched 25,000 from the affordable housing trust and and those funds were were placed under the
comprehensive planning rubric to assist the town. So that this is in in response to that, they've found a consultant. They've got um a project that's moving forward to implement that. So that's a a major piece of the town's planning that
we hope to uh bring with us over to the affordable housing and and again be the the force to implement some of these um ideas that are, you know, coming out of the the planning and development side. So where where is this then in this what stage is this at then? Um this is just
starting off. Um okay. And it will does it suffer the issue of uh uh bridging the funding the the capital for the commercial enterprise? Is there a commercial enterprise involved in this proposal? A little bit. There's a little
bit Liz. Okay. Just a little. Yeah, just a little bit. Um so so this all came about because we had um some blighted really underutilized sites on Route 28, right? And we put the the town meeting
was extremely generous and gave the trust over $3 million to manage to help these dilapitated properties redevelop. Right. It was the motel redevelopment fund. Right. Right. And we
did two sites and they were great. One ended up being Yarmouth Commons and one ended up being Yarmouth Gardens. And you know Yarmouth Commons took the place of a blighted property. Yarmouth Gardens took the place of the oldest motel on I
think in Yarmouth if not the Cape. I don't know. But um we we had these affordable housing developers and we were so excited that they were able to come and help us out, you know, and we said, "Well, can you
make it mixed juice?" Right? And they had uh financial barriers to that. So now we've done two, right? Now we're like, "Okay, we want to get back to this vision of the mixed use, right? and not
use chapter 40B because you lose so much local control with chapter 40B. We're really trying to encourage um developers with some grayfield pre-development money, some technical support, maybe some extra technical
support from staff, you know, um I can't tell you how many people they come in, they have a sketch on a parcel of land and they say, "What do you guys think?" So, we're starting to assemble our technical teams to really give them a lot of comment on that. Um, if it's
mixed if it's if it's what we want if it's mixed use and it fits our village center vision. And that's why we are so excited to have a consultant to work on really defining that village center
vision and look at our zoning and make sure that our zoning is really going to get us where we want to be. the consultant. Yeah. Okay. And maybe even um come up with some theoretical sites or maybe look at some real sites out there on Route 28 that need some help.
So, it's it's really exciting. And remember, we have inclusionary zoning. So, we don't need affordable housing zoning to get this to happen, right? We we'll we'll take a portion of the of the units that be are being developed. um
you know, some of them will be affordable and we're going to help them with that affordable housing piece, you know, with that lottery, with that tenant selection, all of that. We help them with that. So, we've identified big
obstacles to getting the development we want on Route 28 and we're there helping to deal with those. I just Tracy um trying not to be cynical but maybe my old age I guess I've been around long
enough to see these studies these studies the mixeduse development I'm thrilled to be doing it don't get me wrong but we've done this several times before and um I think one of the things that's very difficult for people to understand with this you know blighted
property is that the town can't make somebody do something with their property. You know, we can only give the tools um to to redevelop. I'm a huge fan of redevelopment and not new development. I
think the local comprehensive plan is going to um is going to help us. I think one of the barriers, as I said before, is regulation. And if we can get the Cape Cod Commission out of um a potential
mixeduse development that we want, I think we have a better chance of um attracting a developer anytime you ask a developer to put their money on the line to get an arbitrary uh answer at the end. And that's my personal opinion that you know they go through the pro they go
through all the steps and you have this detriments and benefits analysis which is completely arbitrary and they've spent a million dollars to get there. It's really hard to get a developer to want to do that. So, um getting the local comprehensive plan uh done so that
we can get that is um extremely important. I think you know right now the interest rates don't help us either. But one of the things that you know to your question Liz about uh the funding all of our committees are have funding
for housing right so I think from a taxpayers's perspective helping a developer for retail where they're profitable makes it a little bit more difficult but the one thing I think that we should be looking at as a community is a potential development authority you know we have the housing trust that can
develop for housing but if we had a development authority that um was able to take over some of these parcels that we we could then um to some extent control. That'd be helpful. Um but the public should know that the town has worked very hard. There's for many years there's some very
blighted properties that we have went to them and said, "What can we do to make you invest in your property?" And some of them they just don't want to, right? And it puts us in a very difficult situation. So, um, you know, we've never
had the, um, development authority that could potentially have funding to maybe flip these types of properties because like they can't help the retail piece of it with affordable housing funding, right? So, when you get mixed use, you get it gets maybe more complicated, but
it's what we want. So, maybe we need a development authority to agreed to um, help that. I think we do. Are there any Mary? So, um, thank you Tracy for for reminding me that part of Rof 28 we have a growth
incentive zone that I how I describe it, it's pre-approval by the Cape Cod Commission for something that would normally trigger a a lengthier review. Um, and that the Cape Cod Commission is updating its regional policy plan. Um,
so I've gone to one meeting and I encouraged them to make Gizzes, the the Giz, the growth incentive zones easier because that's what we have on Route 28 for motel that are going to redevelop. Um, um, I I like those better than the
activity centers, the community activity centers because the growth incentive zones are kind of linked to your local zoning. Um, it's required. So, um, that's super important. Unfortunately, Kathy Williams, our town planner, um,
could not be here tonight. She said she was going to watch, so we'll see how my comment grades with her. Thank you, Mary. Any other questions? No, I just would encourage us, yes, to
stay plugged in with uh the RPP development rewrite that they are receptive, but you have to make sure you get there. Yeah, I think I think communities have been using Giz the Giz. Yeah. So,
Bob. Okay. Well, thank you um very much. I want to move on to the issue of the uh an update for some of our um housing input into the Madaki's utilization committee. And I want to recognize um Sharon Wymer, the chairman, and also
Bill Scott, who has largely been an architect to this process. Uh how much we've appreciated as housing advocates having the Madakis process uh to participate in. And I I think it's important to um point out too right at
the the outset of the reason we have this on the agenda and how it fits into the bigger picture. Uh I it's very important to um point out to everyone that when the the select board created the Madakis utilization committee and
gave them their charge, it's a very broad charge and a very complicated charge and um you know our hats are off to them. the way they've approached this and one of the things that they've done is to go out the throughout the community the various stakeholder groups
and elicit input um as to what potential um you know each group had for that overall very large site out at at Madakis. And um my my critical point here is that we acknowledge and respect
that this is a very broad area and there are many independent um groups just like ours that are are feeding into this process and um you know before we hear back from the Madakis utilization committee on you know their proposed
recommendations there's a um a whole series of community forums and input that they need to go through um in this particular instance um the stakeholders here this team this group of tables that
you see um the the reason we were anxious to come forward on the um the madakis topic is because um and I'll say it right out all of us um housing stakeholders were particularly proud of our ability to answer the call when it
was put out by Madakis that um that they needed potential ideas for the Madakis site. Um we got together immediately and Mary was a great spark plug in this held brainstorming sessions and then we held
um second sessions to prioritize things and a third session and every one of these was so well attended by all of our housing stakeholders was was participated in strongly. um we developed a series of ideas and
recommendations that um I I just think we're proud of our efforts at at at stepping forward and being a part of the process. We're not trying to um you know strongarm the madakis process at this point and try to get ahead of everyone but we wanted to we we thought it was a
very instructive um idea of how you start with the community's housing production plan and how you take a particular site and begin to apply the principles that are embodied in that plan. this could have been a different
site. And in in the future, these exact ideas, this stakeholder participation, this um ability to brainstorm and then hone it down to into priorities. Um I I'm certain that we could use and replicate on on other sites. Um and the
communication that came is sort of helped us put together this process. Now we um know each other so well that you know we're used to the different groups meeting and talking and working together. So just a few words on how we got here and what our purpose for
talking about the the matakis is in the middle of the poor utilization committee's process where they still have a lot of of more work to do. So in doing our brainstorming, doing all of the prioritization,
um we uh worked with the Barrett planning group that initially through um county funding from the the ARPA funds. They provided a bank of um consulting dollars that we were able to use to help
organize our efforts. And we have with us this evening Alexis Lenselada, the principal planner for um the Barrett Planning Company. And I'd like to turn it over to Alexis and and have her walk us through a little bit on how we
approached this planning process and and what our results were. Um so I I would do that. Mary, did I leave any I think Alexis is there. Can you hear us, Alexis? Yeah. Yep. Can you hear me? Welcome. We see you as well. Oh, great.
Excellent. Um, so thank you for for having me tonight. Um, and I just wanted to uh talk a little bit about what the process was that um we conducted with the housing team for as part of the MUK process uh and and where the um the team
has landed tenatively and go over the uh the draft for the housing proposal. And you know, Mr. Mr. Chair, I think you make a great point that while the MUK process is ongoing, it does make sense given that this is the uh the housing workshop, just to give a little kind of
update about where the housing land use team uh currently is, but I'm also going to walk you through just kind of a general refresher of of the MUK process. Can I can I just I'm I'm sorry for people at home, MUK is Madakis Utilization Committee, MU. I don't I we
use that term, but I don't think a lot of people know what that is. So, sorry. You're so right, Tracy. Sorry to interrupt. No, thank you. That is You are so right. And I get too um hung up on uh acronyms. So, thank you for that um reminder. Um are you Oh, hang on. Let
me just try that again here. That right. We You were up not on the projector, but we we can see it. Um what's important is the people at home can see it. Okay, great. Do I
um let's see. I'm not sure why it's showing the Oh, you want to know? So, um Town of Yarmouth, are you sharing it or am I? You are. You're live now. You're live. Okay. Okay. So, you just see the I see the arm of the presentation on Yeah,
there we go. Okay. All right. Great. So, um thank you um again everybody. So, uh, as um was mentioned, this our work was through the Barnes County Shared Regional Housing Services Program. Um, as part of this two-year pilot program
that we are working on with the county, we um uh allotted each town 30 hours of technical assistance. So, working closely with uh Mary, we used those or are using those 30 hours to assist the
housing team. And um so I'm just going to walk you through a bit of what we have done. So I'm going to just give an overview of the MUK process um and where our kind of role is with the housing team um as part
of that much larger long-term process. Um and then we are just I'm going to share where the housing team proposal uh in its current draft has landed and then just open it up to the board for for discussion. Um and any of the kind of
feedback or questions or notes um I think will just be kind of um you know noted and uh assembled with um the work to date that the housing team has done um which all will be going to the um the MUK group for their continued review. So
um just as a review of the MUK process um just kind of a little excerpt of the charge. I just love this visual which is from the memo that was in your agenda packet uh because I think it really it just shows uh how the the process here that I think was really well thought out
by um your assistant town administrator William Scott um and the MUK group um utilizes the um the expertise of people that are already in your community uh to kind of report back to the Madakis um
utilization committee or MUK uh so that they can then formulate a plan for the use of the site. So the muck charge, just an excerpt, um is to create an effective reuse plan in a manner that considers multiple alternatives toward achieving a proposal for reuse of the
site. uh and in doing so to ensure uh inclusion of the many interests in the property in an impartial manner and combine that input with technical support to determine alternative scenarios uh that will contribute to but not be limited to one or many of the
following areas. So you can see where those land use teams uh kind of came about and housing is one of those areas uh that the the town wanted uh to be explored as a potential use for part of the site. So you can see there are these
other land use teams here that have been meeting and I'll walk you through a little bit of of uh kind of the status of all that work. Um but there is a municipal services team, housing team. That was where our work through the county um was really focused. Economic
development, we're also um we at Barrett have also been assisting um the CEDC um community and economic development um committee and the chamber. They make up the economic development team. Then the recreation uh land use team, education
and open space and water supply. So, uh, with the hope being that all of these different land use teams, they have a process that has been laid out, uh, and with assistance from staff, um, these teams are going through a series of, uh,
plan of meetings to arrive at a scenario, uh, that considers their their focus. It very well can consider other focuses as well. And you'll see that in the housing scenario that I'm um, when I show the current draft. But then all of
those proposals will eventually go to um MUK uh the MAT the MADAS utilization committee. Um and they will then be uh working with a consultant to really kind of flesh out a um a a master plan idea
for the site that um utilizes a lot of the work that's been done here. So, I just want to give a shout out to the MAT matase utilization committee um and to uh Bill Scott for all of their their work on this. I believe this is the the current uh committee, the current
configuration of the committee. Um apologies if there's any errors there. Um but um and again to uh Bill Scott, a lot of the memos, there's a project page for the the um the process that's been going on and there's a lot of wonderful resources there, past reports that have
been uh shaping the process and um just uh various memos that have been uh put forward to the community or to different groups uh to date. So it's a really kind of wellorganized uh project page that you can, you know, go to for updates.
But the the kind of structure I mentioned that each of those land use teams is is trying to follow kind of a similar structure to uh arrive at um a scenario. And so the first meeting um was you know kind of affectionately called run a muck. It's just a big
brainstorming session. So you have this kind of funnel here and that is where all of these ideas are funneling down and really everything was on the table. So the hope with in the first meeting was um you know to have some some context some understanding of really you
know important things that we can't ignore or we want to be aware of like what does the existing zoning say? What are the environmental constraints uh for housing? What does the uh housing production plan say to give guidance to um the both roots that are part of the
housing team um which are the um the uh the housing committee and the affordable housing trust. And so looking at um you know kind of some some highlevel constraints otherwise really just having big picture thinking what are your hopes and dreams for this site. Then the
second meeting that the teams are kind of asked to do is reconciliation. So it's where you take all of those ideas that have been put in this funnel if you will and trying to narrow it down to to three ideas. And then the the third meeting uh is to the purpose is to come
up with a proposal um at kind of two levels, a moderate and an elevated level. So all of those teams that um I had talked about, they're kind of going to be doing that same process. And so, um, the, uh, the MUK group then is going
to be taking all of that input and working with the consultant to, uh, come up with, um, recommendations to the select board because the the MUK committee is a, um, a select board appointed committee. Um, and so, uh, their recommendations at the end of the
process will be going back to you. Um, but I just just to kind of walk you through where housing is. Um, so the housing meetings took place in January, February, and March. Um, and they were able to arrive at a uh kind of a draft scenario at a moderate and an elevated
level that I'll show you. Um, the affordable housing trust and the community housing committee in in um subsequent meetings have continued to kind of refine the proposal. So that's why we're calling it a draft uh because there may be some changes before it goes to MUK and then um MUK will use that
input to uh eventually prepare um suggestions for the select board to consider. But just to kind of um summarize here, you know, you can see there's a lot of active meetings going on for these different land use teams um and it's still ongoing. So uh to your
point uh Mr. chair. This is a an ongoing process and we're not trying to get ahead of anybody here. Just talking about since we're here to talk about housing, where the housing group has kind of landed uh so far. And so the housing team draft proposal is
um there are two here that were in your meeting packet. There's a moderate and an elevated because that was the task as it was laid out um was to come up with a scenario that um could be kind of viewed at two different scales. So, um the the
general hope uh that the housing team wanted to propose was it was that there would be kind of a mixeduse site um with residential uh and community and commercial uses that would be compatible with the housing on the site potentially things like a convenience store, coffee
shop, child care shops and so on. Um and so at the moderate level, what we did when when we went to the um the the meeting with the um with both groups, the housing committee and
the affordable housing trust, we leaned on the kind of the goals that were in the housing production plan for what your annual production target was and what the breakdown was of rental versus ownership. And um then the groups kind of fine-tuned it a little bit. Um, but
that's where those numbers, the preliminary numbers came from. We just looked to the housing production plan. It's great that you have a a recently completed one um that gave us that that guidance. But so um you can see here there's um uh again I'll walk you
through uh briefly both of these separately, but just to show you how this is laid out. Again, there's that moderate uh scenario and then the elevated scenario. Um and then there are other important matters discussed because ultimately that the housing like any any land use uh any of the land use
teams they're going to be tasked with giving uh some sort of write up to MUK. And so there were other issues and considerations that the housing committee and the housing trust wanted to kind of make sure were were included um as as being very important. And so
those are also still kind of under discussion as well. And I mentioned again this is in draft um there the both groups are still kind of individually working these things out but just to um walk you through. So for the the moderate scenario again for both the moderate and the elevated it's that
residential with community and commercial uses but um for the moderate um aiming for uh 62 rental units. Um these would primarily these would uh most likely be multif family buildings with um you know some fairly significant
uh density uh two to three stories uh any three-story building um to have an elevator. Um the groups are suggesting mixed income um with 25 to 50% of the units being affordable. Um the buildings would uh uh meet the town's
architectural guidelines. Um, and the groups have kind of comfortably settled at 1.5 parking spots per unit. Uh, aiming for a mix of studios, one, two, and threebedroom units. Um, uh, for senior friendly units, uh, looking to
have, uh, universally accessible, uh, units, um, an elevator again, particularly for three-story buildings. Um, and having enough uh, kind of smaller units for smaller households. um really aiming to incorporate green energy and net zero. And the groups
right now are suggesting that the site go toward the rear of the parcel in place of the former Madakis classroom area. So the southeast um corner of the site. Um and then there in addition to the rental units, the groups are
suggesting um that there be uh 100% um affordable um uh single family ownership units as well. that these would be detached units. Um the model would be, you know, like a habitat neighborhood. Um and this would be um uh kind of an
ideal uh area that the group was thinking was placing to the west of the rental housing um in in the the graveled area that that you see here. So the housing group was really trying to be kind of cognizant of the areas that are already disrupted um to avoid um we we
kind of did a loose GIS calculation heavy on the loose but about half the site is disrupted in some way. So trying um the groups are trying to kind of look at where those already disrupted areas um what might make sense um and then that would really leave still a significant amount of the site um for
other kind of uh flexible uses. And then um again for the moderate lastly the groups were interested including municipal employee uh rental units um because you know a lot of the uh affordable housing programs uh the SHI
eligible housing um it is um you know a lot of times what we're thinking of with you know municipal employees workforce housing it may be um above that uh income tier that that 80% but um people still cannot afford housing or they
cannot find housing um in the community. So the suggestion from the groups was that these would be detached um rental units um and it would be used to attract and retain municipal employees. So that's kind of the moderate um the the the moderate plan for the
site. Then um for the elevated um uh site, the again it's really all basically the same. It's just increasing the number of units. So um uh this would uh double the units and again this is based on for
your HPP uh there is a an annual goal um communities in order to have an HPP approved by the state there you have to have a stated numerical goal for uh uh affordable housing SHI eligible housing again I'm going with the acronyms here apologies subsidized housing inventory
um when I say SHI um that's what I'm referring to but so that SHI eligible housing um the the housing housing production plan has to have an annual goal um that is based on 0.5% of your year- round housing stock. Um and then
uh if you achieve um double that goal, so that 1% then um the community um if you have a uh approved housing production plan, which you do, um you could then request what's called a certified housing production plan. So,
if you obtain that annual production target uh for that 0.5% of your year- round housing that I referenced, that gets you one year certified housing production plan. And if you achieve um uh double that, then you get a two-year certification from your for your plan.
And that gives you um more, you know, in in a nutshell, it gives you a lot more um uh control over the 40b process during that time period that the uh housing production plan is certified. So that's again where we got those numbers, but really by and large um everything is
kind of staying the same. It's just that there's more housing. Um so 124 rental units versus the 62 in the moderate. Uh 12 affordable homes. Uh again, those would be ownership habitat model. And then um the the um the again that would
be kind of uh in the the graveled area. I apologize. I'm realizing that I cut the map off too much. and the um the the um the not all the legend is there. So you can't see that the north arrow this is this is turned. So when so this is the southeast corner here um that the um
committee was referring to uh with the um where they would want to concentrate the housing and then the ownership units again suggesting kind of this this area where there's this gravel pit um just loosely again really just trying to focus it on the areas of the site that have already been disturbed um to uh to
protect a lot of the forested areas and then also to leave um ample room on the site for uh potentially for some of those other um uses that other uh groups are looking at as well. And then this would also uh plan to kind of double um as it's done with the other uh types of
housing, double the number of um municipal employee rental units. Again, suggesting that these be detached units and the really the purpose would be to attract and retain municipal employees. Um but so these are the the moderate and elevated um uh kind of the the plan that
the housing uh team has come up with so far with the input from both the affordable housing trust and the community housing committee. Um so when I'm just going to uh zip back really quickly to that meeting schedule to clarify something in case I was unclear. These housing meetings uh were a joint
meeting of both groups of the affordable housing trust and of the community housing committee and they had such great productive wonderful conversations um for all three of the meetings. Um and it was really really uh uh great to see the ideas that went back and forth um
and a lot of the kind of similarities and just common ground. Um again uh I believe at the subsequent meetings of each group they were just kind of still fine-tuning some of the the language. Um and then when they are um uh good to go,
uh we at Barrett will then be taking it and producing just a a a brief write up that includes, you know, kind of fleshes out some of the other considerations that they want to recommend to the um matase utilization committee, the MUK group, uh for their consideration as they review the work of all of those
other land use teams. So that's just our update on the work done. Um, and then I just wanted to turn it back to um to you for a discussion. So I will stop screen
sharing there. And um I mean I'm happy to answer any questions about the um the the work that you know we've done to date. Um and you know but in terms of the other land use teams I might not be uh the most up to date on that. I do
know again the town's done a really great job of keeping that website updated. So I know at least the the work from each group from I think the first brainstorming session is up there. Um so oh thank you Alexis that's very
informative. Um are there any questions? Mary, I just I just want to just follow up um that if people want to know more about the Madakis utilization project, just go to any search bar and do Yarmouth, put in Yarmouth Madaks
Utilization Project. You'll come to this fantastic web page that Bill Scott has administered and it's has everything from day one on the MUK process. So, that's good. Also, we were able to pull in Barrett planning, which really helped
the housing uh pod kind of move right along because for at least the housing piece, we were able to use the county arpers funded program um where we have a regional housing office. There was a 2-year pilot program um where we got 30
hours of technical support from the county's procured consultant. And fortunately it was Barrett planning that was that was procured and we got 30 hours paid through the through the county uh of APA
funds opera funds paid for it and that's how we got so far along. It was such a great connection with Barrett planning that other muck pods have been using them as well. Um so I I think we're in I think we're in pretty good uh hands.
Nice. Thank you. That's good to know. Sharon, did you have anything you wanted to add? Well, I could probably add a lot, but um I think first of all, I'd like to thank Bob um and Bill for
creating the process. Actually, Bill is sort of the the father of the process. And um his baby is working out really well because everyone is talking to one another. And I think that's a great um a
great thing that's happened within the town. I don't know that all the housing committees have always talked with one another. Um so I thank him thank them both for uh the process they created. It also has saved money uh
which I think is important to the select board because we haven't used a consultant the muck um as of yet although we've just hired and will be using a consultant to help us with our fine-tuning of our process um which goes
into lots of conversations in regards to everybody's uh submitt of their ideas which isn't quite finished yet. We're still going to do the economic uh group at the end of the month and then we have a bit of time to get everything
fine-tuned and those will go up eventually on a great site that Mary's mentioned that Bill has created. And we have lots of information, lots of data if you're interested, the condition of the buildings from past school committee
uh reports on Madakis and Emmy Small and uh a number of other great things. Uh Kathy Williams did a a zoning analysis that's up there. So there's a a great many terrific things that you can find. I also want to
um as a as a leazison to the housing committees I want to thank and I think Barbara would too and Roby um how much fun it's been because uh they are a great great committees and great representatives
from uh the Yarmouth housing as well and we just um I think Barb I think I speak for Barbara that Uh we really enjoyed it and um the brainstorming just so everybody gets an idea and flavor of
what the housing has done is they're brainstorming ideas. I think we're 26. Joe, they have called down and had lots of conversations and still probably having fine-tuning conversations where
the groups can kind of come together and uh agree on different language. But um it's been a great um it's been extremely fun for someone like myself who's not traditionally connected to the town but
having a chance to listen to you at all. I have been in real estate, so I kind of know a little bit about some of the things that you all are dealing with. Um, so that's been fun. Um, but as I say, we haven't finished yet this
process and then once that goes, I think we're going to try to be as thorough as possible and we're going to be data driven and we want to kind of analyze everything. I do want to mention that in terms of all the different groups I go
to um I do hear different placements for where the school should go. I do hear different locations where the housing should go. I do hear different uh com you know conversations about types of
fields, types of buildings. So, it's someone's going to be disappointed and I just want to stick that in the conversation now so maybe we won't get lambasted by the time we're through, but it actually goes to this board, the
select board. So, if we change some things, they have the right to do the same, too. But we hope we give them good reasons as to why we're suggesting what what we do. So, it's uh been interesting and fun and uh had a lot of support from
Bill Scott um through the process. So, um look forward to keep working on it and hopefully uh get finished in a with an A. Sharon, thank you. So I I can see it has been fun, but I'm sure it's also been a
lot of work and a lot of consensus building and I appreciate the input that has been uh done by each and everyone so far up to date. Any other questions on um MUK as we call it or MADK utilization
committee? Bob, would you like to move on? Certainly. Um and once again I thank the members of the housing authority um and and also Wendy for being with us um this evening sort of uh um in planning a
session that updates on affordable housing um had we not had this participation you know it would be um you know a big loss for us. So, we're we're very thankful to continue our efforts to bring all of our stakeholders
to the table by um including the housing authority and in the work that you're going going through. We we know that it is an autonomous agency that is um organized under uh the state statutes and not a town board. Uh so I think that
makes the uh the participation um all the better and the way you fuel our efforts and um we wanted to turn it over to you um for an update. We're very mindful of the release of the RFP on um
the the property that that you have and how you see that process moving forward and um how the concerns of the town can be implemented um into that process. And so um starting the the dialogue we felt
would be very very um important, critical and valuable. So welcome. And Wendy, I'll just turn it over to you. Thank you for inviting us. Um we are like you said a quasi state federal agency.
Um and the land has gone the RFP has gone out and we're awaiting responses by um May 7th. Um 3 p.m. would be um hopefully we'll have some good responses
at that time. You want to go over the slide? Want me to do it? I'll do it. Give me the mic. So anyway, because I love to speak. So anyways, I did interview Wendy uh last
week and so the housing authority is like my go-to agency when I can't solve a housing pro problem. Um, I do more and more housing counseling, more than I ever thought possible, but I am really
talking to a lot of um, residents who are in crisis and it's sad. I'm getting choked up. But anyways, when I have a bad day, I turn to these guys because they've really helped me solve some pretty serious problems. So,
I just wanted to kind of I interviewed her about about what the housing authority does. So they have two major uh components that serve Yarmouth. They have a rental voucher program and then they ma own and manage rental
properties. So they have 332 federal rental vouchers and 37 state rental vouchers. And what a rental voucher does, it helps a lowincome household afford housing by paying a
portion of the rent. So, remember we were talking about cost burdens before. The rental voucher fills that gap so that the household is only paying 30% of their actual income on rent. And so, just think about that. If you're a
household that went on social security, you retired, you're only getting social security, that's it. Some people their social security check is only $1,000, right? So if they only have to pay a third of that on their housing costs,
they can still live a high quality life here in Yarmouth, you know, they might take advantage of services from Elder Services or, you know, the senior center or whatever, but we can patch it together and they can have a high quality life. So those rental vouchers
are super important and they're not easy. They're not easy. Every year they have to verify somebody's income. um they have they get audited. Um they have to do all sorts of reports. So it's like this quiet program that we don't
hear an awful lot about, but it's really important. The other thing is it's very confidential, right? So it's not like we can say, hey, you know, this is the picture of the family that we helped last week. Like you can't do that. So it's kind of like like we hear all this
stuff, but we can't really say the the story. I can't bring those stories to you. So, it's it's kind of a weird situation that we're in. But anyways, um we're like silent sufferers sometimes, I think. Um the other thing is rental properties. So, uh right now the Yamoth
Housing Authority owns and manages 40 rental units at Long Pond Plaza. So, these serve seniors that are 60 plus and disabled individuals. Um so, people know where this is. Um, it's at 5:34 Winslow
Grey. So, it's the very end of Winsow Grey over to the right. If you hit the stop sign, if you're at the stop sign, you've already passed the the driveway. So, people just and it's right there. Um, but um I have been in some of the units. We've helped those units. We've
done some deleting there. I think we helped with the heating. New stoves. New stoves. Painted all the railings. We painted the railings. I think we fix back in the day we p we fix some uh sidewalk issues um and the the state
gives money to the housing authority as well to maintain those properties. They also lease out a congregate living facility um to a local nonprofit to house disabled adults. Um so there is another facility and as we mentioned
before um there is right now out a request for proposal to select a developer to design construct, operate, and manage affordable rental units at 506 Forest Road. And this RFP is due May 7th,
2025. Now, I was instructed to give you the whole RFP. Sorry, it's like this huge document. It was like ships passing in the night. I wish I had said, "Do you want the whole thing?" But it all is in there. And what was I did copy the full
thing for everybody that wanted it because it has a lot of information in the appendices. And so you keep seeing the lot over and over and over again, but there's actually a lot of information connected to it. And um maybe you could go through about who
helped you write the RFP. So, um, we worked with Laura Shufeld from the Mass Housing, um, partnership and who's the professional in all of this and with her guidance, the
board o it took over a year to come to fruition to put out the RFP with careful uh, consideration for the neighbors um, buffer zones. there's certain criteria that is more advantageous in the um
sorry in the RFP when the when the proposals come back that the board will review and try to find the most advantageous um criteria before going forward. We will not own the property.
It will be the developer who owns it. We'll lease the land. They'll build it. They'll um manage it. Um But it will be hopefully 100% affordable with different income guidelines between 30% AMI and
80% AMI all inclusive in the units. Wendy is AMI for the people listening at home average median income. Yes. Okay. Once again just getting into those alphabet and Drew I see that you have it open to
that page the criteria. Would you go over that a little bit? What is that? An attachment or Well, you mean it's it's just the part of the uh RFP that gives the criteria that we're looking for. It's attachment A. It's attachment A. I
just thumb through till I got to it. So, when there aren't page numbers here, but it is attachment A. It's not that far in. It's not that far in. Bob Lton won't accept a document without Yeah. numbers
on this reason. It's on the 12th page. Attachment A, comparative evaluation criteria 506. I have three copies of it and it shows uh what we're looking for in it. And this was developed through with the expertise
of the Mass Housing Partnership. I'm not we're not experts on this, but they are. And we think they've we believe that they've come up with a moderate and possibly doable proposal. We'll see if we get uh proposals back
from developers. Um uh the affordability is the is the second section there and it says that advantageous is 100% affordable to 80% AMI with some targeted at or below 50%
AMI. and highly advantageous. We would have units ranging from 30% to 80% AMI because the mission of a housing authority in Massachusetts is to try to provide safe
decent housing for uh people of lower income and uh we have to see what is economically feasible for a developer to do. Um we also part of the mission is to
create such housing if possible for residents and since uh the housing authority owns this particular property it's an opportunity to create affordable housing and we know there's a tremendous need for affordable
housing. So um that's what's kicked off the whole thing. Right. Uh Bambi would do you think I've got it straight on that? Okay. And uh so we're waiting for proposals to come back to see if any come back that
meet our uh criteria and that will be uh we'll start finding out on May 7th on that. And um then it would be up to up to the developer. This would be a 40B development and it would be up to to the
developer to present their uh proposal to the town and to see if they can satisfy all the all the health and safety, water, wastewater, storm water
requirements that are necessary. What else? I think you did a good job. What do you think, Mary? Yeah, I think it's good. So they have they have can I have the mic again? They have um minimum requirements which minimum requirements are in the front p part and then if a
developer a project team brings those in then they looked at these selection criteria. So they have stuff on developer experience, the affordability, you'll see that that kind of is different than matakis what we recommended for matakis. Um the site
design's criteria there. They talk about financial feasibility because they do not want to partner with an entity that won't be able to finish the job. Um and then it says references, site visits, and interviews. Um so that just gives
you a flavor, you know. Um we've been through this uh different times in the affordable housing trust. So for example, we did RFPs for the motel redevelopments. Um um but
um it's really not a a very like technically hard document to read through um the RFP. So I'd give it a little time. Um, and I'm sure that if you had any maybe you have some comments tonight or some questions right now, but
if you have anything that comes up later on, I'm sure Wendy um and Bambi is uh Bambi Wyatt Rosario is the chair of the board. I'm sure they can answer your questions. I thought of one other thing. uh the the the uh Laura and the Mass
Housing Partnership uh craft tried to craft this and I think they did so that it would be uh would not be too big that it would be moderate enough to be able to meet all the environmental requirements and I'm hopeful that it would be able to meet
those requirements and uh one of the things that have been included in here is that uh we're hoping that it would be a green type project, a net zero type aspiration and
um that would be highly advantageous in our in our qualification. So that's so that's part of it too. Is this RFP available for the public if they want to access it? And if so, where do they need to go to get it? They can email or call
my office and I can email it out. I it might be on the I don't know if it's it's in our packet. I don't know if it's on our website, but I don't know that that's I don't think it was in our packet. No, it wasn't. Unfortunately, the link to it was it was
open. It is. It's in there. Okay, there is. So, if they go to the select board and look at the uh meeting date of April 22nd, there's a link to it. There's a link to be able to get to the RFP. Yes. Okay, great. You all didn't get a copy.
We did. We all have a copy. Yeah. So, some people got it only electronically and it's towards the end, but it looks like that. It doesn't the front page. It does exist. And so, how do they get in touch with the housing
authority? What's the phone number? Uh 50839829. I'm going to garble 2920. 2920. It's 508 3982920. Um, you can ask for a copy of the RFP that way or you can contact me.
Um, I'm at town hall. Um, 508398-2231 extension1275 or mwagan atyarmmouth.mma. us. Call now before it's too late. But wait, there's more.
Are there any questions? I have a question. Tracy, um I'm happy to hear um Mr. Krauss talk about the the process, right? So, um there's a lot of um concerns with the
water and we know that you're down this road and I'm not trying to backtrack or whatever. Um, so you said it's a 40B project, but they need to meet the criteria of um of
the town bylaw. Isn't that kind of contradictory to itself? I mean, won't they won't a 40B exempt them from certain um parts of of our bylaw? You probably know more about it than I do. It exempts from certain zoning requirements. Okay. But I don't
think it would exempt them from health standards and water standards in any way. Okay. I don't think it I I hope it doesn't. I wouldn't want I wouldn't want it to. Okay. I don't think it does. Yeah. All right. So, it's going to go through a regular process with the town
after um somebody's selected. And but it so will it have to go to the board of appeals? Right. It does. So it it would it hopefully it's a friendly 40B, right? Yeah. Um hopefully. Um what's the Can
you just talk about the difference? Right. Sure. Sure. So this this developer is probably going to apply to the state for state financing, right? Low-income housing tax credits, etc.
As such, it it won't go through the normal friendly 40B process that we use, which is through the local initiative program office where, you know, we're constantly looking at these plans. Different departments are looking at the
plans, kicking it up to the state, meeting with the developer, and kind of working those things out. But once a developer is selected, right, it doesn't stop that developer from coming into town hall and working with
us and having those informal site plan reviews and working with the people that are involved in friendly 40bs. So, I'm hoping that the developer that gets selected is does not like aggressive
chapter 40bs, right? Wants something that will fit in with the town. the fact that um in this RFP, if you go to the very end, there's some sketches about how things are laid out. Um I don't know
if I can Bambi, so I don't want to misspeak, but it's um they're labeled conceptual only, right? Attachment E and it has some some sketches
Um, so you can see from the sketches they're not cutting down every tree, right? They don't want it clearcut. The other thing is it the site is 18 acres and I was very encouraged that um the preliminary engineering on the
site put a cap of 90 bedrooms, 49 units and 49 units. So now just just wrap your head around this a little bit, right? It's 18 acres, right? There's some zoning in town that allows much higher
density than that. And I was I was thrilled that this 18 acre parcel was not going to be used for a mega development. I I really appreciate that. Um and it kind of shows to me that there's some that we could work stuff out, you know.
Um so the first step is to identify a developer who wants to work with the housing authority to develop this this property. Um hopefully part of that process is involving the town because we have a ton
of resources. We have experience. We know we know how to get things done and affordable housing that fits what the town wants. So, I'm hoping that I mean that door is open. That door is open. You guys get to select the you all get
to select the developer, but I hope the first thing you do is refer them to us um to to help make that project the best that it can be. I mean, I remember one of the very first comments I had on this
was to keep the buffer trees and that's in here and it's in there. So, um anyways, It occurred to me that um the thing about 90 bedrooms is I'm pretty sure that that is the is a maximum
because that will ensure that we can uh that the developer would be complying with what the uh health department can allow in a well in a zone two wellhead protection zone for the number of bedrooms for that amount of acreage. See
what I mean? like it's scaled so that it could very well be approvable under the current regulations. I think that's how that how they came up with that. Yeah. Now, after they get control of the property and it could be through some type of written agreement, legally
binding a agreement, that's when they start the process with the state to apply for the project eligibility letter. They can't go to the zoning board of appeals without the project eligibility letter. Right? During that review, the town will be notified that there's a site visit and a 30-day
comment period for the project site eligibility letter. And we have to have our sneakers on when that happens because we have to act quick. And so we had that. We had remember the the old laundry site on Route 28. We did that. We all got there. We did went to the
site visit. It was freezing cold, I think, whatever it or rainy. It was rainy that day, but we went and we put in comments that drastically change that project. So, that's something that we all have to take advantage of when that comes around. That's one of the things
that towns do not take advantage of is that 30-day comment period. Um, if the state goes forward and issues a site eligibility letter, then that project proponent, I think, has two years to apply to the ZBA. And it's a pretty comprehensive packet because it's for a
comprehensive permit, right? Um it is uh the Cape Cod Commission does get to review the project, but the project doesn't fall under the Cape Cod uh commission review as a development of regional impact. Right. Which is normally triggered at 30 unless it's
requested. Right. Right. But we do send the packet that so I sit in the same office as the ZBA um uh uh administrative assistant. So I usually I usually help with these because they
it's involved in affordable housing. We get these packets from the developer and they all go out to different entities, one being the Cape Commission, the planning board, the board of health, the select board, all and we collect, we have 30 days to collect all the comments and bring them to the zoning board of
appeals who processes this as a special permit um granting authority. Um, and we can hire a technical consultant from the state to help us with that review. Um, I believe Bob, correct me if I'm wrong, that special permit granting authorities
in town can um hire consultants to review any technical document that comes in right at the cost of the applicant. That is correct. So if we take advantage of all the things that we know about the public comment periods, getting the
engineer, getting the engineers to peerreview work, um um uh getting technical assistance money and hiring a chapter 40B consultant to help our ZBA through the process, we we should do
fairly well. We should do fairly well. Well, well, I just wanted to point out, I mean, there's a couple of things that um would be best. It would be a little easier, I think, on the the overall process if the the housing authority
took some affirmative steps on some of the particular issues. And there was a public meeting that was held previously that um you know there there was a lot of discussion around some of the preliminary engineering and and and I I would say that one of the things we'd
like to specifically request in your selection process um to u hone in on the on the issue first is the water supply protection that um there there are you
know, those nearby water supply wells that um are are quite frankly um you know, threatened with excess nitrogen, nitrate levels. There's issues involving emerging contaminates and in PAS that um
you know are rife throughout that area as a result of overdevelopment. And um I I I don't think that there's any way that additional development could occur without a a nitrogen removal advanced nitrogen removal system there. And and
it's not required in the RFP, but it can be required in the um in the selection process. And I just think that the spectre of threat to the town's public water supply, you know, creates a a major barrier to this um particular
development. And I and I can't stress enough that um that is an issue that um and and I know I don't speak for this board, but you know, we establish the various goals of the town. This is goal number one. We don't do anything um uh you know before the water supply um is
protected. And so we ask for your sensitivity there. The other issue that is mentioned I I think um you know in in detail but um needs some I I think additional work is the um the storm
water management plan is that I know that um you know we've heard a number of times from um area residents that it's a high groundwater zone to begin with and there are storm water management problems in all of the developed areas
within the vicinity of um you know the proposed development and the the storm water management plan is going to be absolutely critical. Um the I I I I think that that there's a lot of belief that that this development could um
impact neighboring properties and uh you know there there is an ability to head that head that off and to to really present detailed information that is is there a way that number one all of the
um you know the run from the runoff from the site is contained but um what what other areas you know of the site can be managed to help um if there's any runoff already going to any neighboring properties. It's it's it's a real
concern. And and as far as technical issues, those are a couple that I I wanted to mention that hopefully um if if we this thing rolls into the ZBA and we have all consultants and and and this is the first time these issues come up,
it's going to be extraordinarily problematic. So we we were hoping that um those issues really need to be addressed uh before the selection is is done and and and also the um ability of the housing authority to maintain site
control uh in the um instance that a successful permitting process is not mounted is if if the developer does doesn't have you know the wherewithal to answer questions and address these issues. um you know, we we'd like to
know that that the housing authority maintains the site control sufficient to ensure that that those get done. And so, um those are just a couple of concerns just right off off the bat. And Madam Chair, go ahead.
First of all, um I want to thank everybody for being at this meeting. I think one of the reasons why we organized this meeting is because we think when we're dealing with the topic of housing that we it would be beneficial to have everyone sitting down
and talking to one another about what we're working on, what our hopes are, what our dreams are, and where we can be helpful to one another. And um I think we're all very mindful of the challenge that each of us have, each of the
committees, each of these groups. And my hope is is that after today's meeting, we can continue to have a dialogue and continue to work together. I think this kind of discussion, this kind of interaction is pretty productive. Um, and it will be as it continues. So, I don't want to I I don't want
particularly for the housing authority representatives that are here. I just want to be pretty straightforward that this project itself, I think, unfortunately has the potential to be incredibly divisive in this community. We have a town meeting vote at least one
that was strongly against the project. Um and I attended the public meeting in which this was discussed and it was a packed room of residents against it. Um, from my point of view, you know, I've been involved in local government throughout my career, and typically town
meetings are the governing bodies that we look to for guidance in terms of how we as select board members uh need to engage uh with projects and with other groups. And so when a project like this sort of generates significant opposition
in the community and a very strong vote against it at town meeting, it makes it very very difficult for an executive board like a select board uh to be engaged in a productive or positive way on a project. Uh and I'm and I'm glad that a town administrator identified
some of the issues um that are really serious and I think are at the core of the opposition to the project. So, I think it's in it's incredibly important to address those issues. Um, but I'm just curious how
you you know, you've got a full room of neighbors and residents coming in opposed to the project. You have a very strong vote, at least one at town meeting against the project. How do you how do you respond to that? How do you respond to the people that are dead set
against this? Can you do you have some comments or thoughts about how you're maybe hoping to proceed maybe to to to to to engage support for the project? How do you want to deal with that? Cuz quite frankly, some of these details that we're getting tonight are are helpful.
It's helpful for us to know this information. My hope is that people will be watching. But how do you how do you respond to the folks the widespread opposition to this project? What's what's the message to them and to your neighbors? You want to give a message? Nope.
Well, there is no project yet. I mean, we're going to see what proposals come back and it is up to us on the on on the board of the the board of commissioners of the housing authority to potentially
uh approve one of those proposals. Then we'll I don't know what all the resources we can bring to bear to work with the developer. They'll know better than we do to uh publicize and advocate for the plan that we have agreed would
be workable and would help the town of Yarmouth by providing a significant amount of affordable housing. And you say the information we presented today was helpful, but this is information about a potential proposal. You know, there is
no proposal yet. And uh the reason that I'm personally, this is just me personally, I'm not speaking for anyone else, uh uh am interested in seeing it uh go forward and see what proposals we
get is that I personally believe that it can be environmentally safe at the level that it's being proposed. the two uh things that you brought up are absolutely right on point and in that
order. Like the first priority is drinking water obviously and the second priority is um storm water storm water storm water runoff because they have all those uh flooding problems in the neighboring uh
neighborhood. And I'm not an expert. I don't have all the facts at the tip of my tongue, but I'm persuaded that at this moment that there may be viable answers to that. And maybe we can work with a developer to to put that across
to people and to say what the benefit of it would be, which is decent, safe, hopefully somewhat attractive, affordable housing that doesn't use up all 18 and a half acres, but uses up maybe I don't know half of
it for housing with plenty of trees left. So that's that's all I got for for for tonight. Joyce on that. I I had a question. Um I guess it would be for Drew or Bambi part one and then
for somebody from town staff for part two. I was wondering about the uh proposed timeline. I know you don't have a proposal yet, but like what would be your ideal and how that runs parallel to um the sewing of that whole area? Yeah.
What do we know about the sewing that that's not uh going up there scheduled to go up that road for quite a long time unfortunately? Yeah. Yeah. So the the development would presumably precede the sewers. I'm I'm Yes. I'm assuming that
the affordable housing developer is going to ask that question. Yeah. Right. Y and call the engineering department and our water department and and and do diligence, you know, in any proposal. So things
might in terms of sewing that area get done a little faster perhaps. I I don't I that would be a lovely thing. I don't know. Or they could build a treatment plant. Good comment in writing it down. Very good comment. Or there could be a treatment
plant on site treatment. Yeah, we're going to have to have some kind of on-site treatment of water. Yes. Madam chair. Oh, I'm sorry. Norm, I believe you have a question. We can block in your Go ahead.
Just a comment. Um um thank you Bob for very delicately expressing some of the concerns of the neighborhood and of the town. Um this proposal was originally approved for 30
units, not not the 90 bedrooms. Um and it was senior housing. That's what's in town meeting. Look at the the details. They're available. Any additional water
introduced into that area will increase flooding in Captain's Village. Any increase in water. Be aware of that. It'll open up the town and them to
a lawsuit. Elizabeth, did you have something? Sorry, Liz. I should say not Elizabeth. I felt like I did something wrong. Oh, I'm sorry. You get the full name with Argo if if you do something wrong. Um,
I commend you having most of my career building RFPs and going through procurement and but I'm concerned that um you're a agreeing with the criteria
that are are o really um beyond the norm that need to be explicit. And I think you're you're shooting yourself in the foot by not spelling it out in your RFP. The the advanced nitrogen treatment is
not specified. It should be specified that it is a part of the criteria. The storm water management and a map to describe what you're talking about I think should be in your RFP. I don't
think you you can expect a a developer to read your mind. And I unfortunately that's what you're you're going to have a lot of people reading this. And it looks very um easy to accomplish, but it really isn't. And I I
don't think you've been clear about what you need. And I also question the fact that you don't require any bonding of any kind, which I've just never been involved with an RFP that didn't require bonding with if it's a big project like this of some kind. I also wonder who's
your evaluation committee going to be. Well, there's only three board members to begin with. So I think that might need to be expanded when and again this is not my this is your RFP but we did at at Cape and Vineyard Electric
Cooperative we always reached out to the host community and incorporated um select board members and so on. So yes, those are my comments. I I I know it's out and so on, but it's almost like I perhaps an amendment or addendum could
go up and out so that you're you still have time to alert your developers that there are some real specific requirements and that might save you a lot of time with weeding through some people who really are not equipped to
take to to do this. That's a good point. Are there any other I think you Yes, I have a comment. Sure. Hi. Uh this is Greg Wheeler. I'm on the community housing committee. I I want to
say that first and foremost, I'm in favor of affordable housing. Um just not in this location. Um we have a very limited amount of undeveloped land on the Cape and it's
shrinking. And I'd like to see this property stay just as it is. Um I understand that we can't force people to put affordable housing in blighted areas on Route 28,
but to me it makes more sense. It's not easy, but it's the right thing to do. And I also think that by doing that, we killed two birds with one stone. And I think that future generations would appreciate the fact that we left the
limited undeveloped land in this town just as it is undeveloped. Again, I'm all for affordable housing. I think we need it. Not just affordable housing for renters, but also for people who who want to buy a home. This is a great community to
live in, but we're we're running out of undeveloped land, and it'd be a shame to see that go to waste. Thank you. Can I just say um I I I agree with Greg. Um I it it's again I've been
here since maybe too long, but you know there was a point in time many years ago where before we went down this road. It's problematic now. They have an RFP out. They are the owners of the property. Um
the town meeting votes that Mark talked about are real. I mean there's this is this has been an issue for many many years and before the Cavalier was even developed there was a point in time where we tried to discuss switching properties. So um or doing some type of
transfer of development rights where we would not develop on this land but give them that right somewhere else. Um, you know, I'm personally still in favor of all of that, but I think, um, you know, I'm I'm happy they're here now, but, you
know, they have an RFP out for this, and we, at this point in time, hopefully they will incorporate um the issues that Bob talked about and Liz talked about into uh their proposal.
And um but it doesn't seem to me that they have any interest in switching their plan at this point. Um but again many many years ago there was after the town meeting vote um there was dialogue about about um not developing this and
trying to find a different parcel of land for them to develop. But I think, you know, with the technicalities that go along with that and, you know, the property that they own, it became very difficult. And they've had the property for, you know, since the 80s. So,
um, it's, you know, they've had it for a lot of years and then there was a push to say, oh, at least if you're going to own it, do something with it. So, um, I just, I just hope we have better communication going forward. We work together. Um, I think, you know, like
what Greg was just saying, I think all you you've heard our discussions about affordable housing. Everybody here knows we need affordable housing and we just want to put it in places where it's not impactful. And I think that's our responsibility is to make sure that, you know, we protect our our water. That's
that's key. And um, you know, again, this has been going on for a long time. And, you know, we'll see what happens. perhaps um perhaps the RFP they won't be able to uh generate something from it and then we can come back to the table and have
some real discussions. Um but I think I think that um helping you develop affordable housing is something that we should um it it's a priority right then we need
it. So maybe we can work together to find a better place for it if this doesn't work out. But if that doesn't happen, whatever we can do to ensure the um water supply is protected and the uh storm water um
drainage is is protected is is just crucial. Um, so I would ask you, um, it's a tough decision for you to make as a board and as Bambi was saying, there are three of you. Um, you might think of
joining having someone join you from a subcommittee who has that expertise to assist you in in making that decision. Um, ideally, we'd all like to see it go somewhere else. I mean, I don't think anyone here is going
to tell you any different. Uh, but if we can't, then we want to do what we can to protect the people that live around that area. And I will really appreciate you coming here tonight. Um,
and I really want you to know that what you're hearing here is that we would like to help you in any way we can. What we don't want to do is to set up an adversarial arrangement um that isn't going to be to the benefit of the people
that live in this town. We really all are here for the same thing and that is to provide safe affordable housing um for people that live in this town and a safe environment for people that live in
this town. So, I appreciate you coming tonight. Are there any other questions? Thank actually yes. Thank you for coming tonight. Thank you. Any other questions? I think we've come to the end of our agenda. Conclusion.
Yes. I pause ceremony. German ceremony. I I just once again want to thank you all for coming. I think that um what I would like to see personally is that this not be the one time we do it all year, but
now that we've now that we've seen each other, um it's time to it it come back and have another update on how things are going and I appreciate your time and energy tonight and all of the hard work that all of you are doing. It's
fantastic. Any questions or comments by any of the other members? Excited. We have a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Second. We have a second on that. Any discussion? All those in favor? I. Thank you and good