Housing Greenfield Meeting Notes – 08/05/2024

Present: Susan Worgaftik, Peg Hall, Chuck Green,  Amy Clarke, Anna Oltman, Alyssa Larose, Joannah Whitney,  Shaundell Diaz, Charity Day, Versa Clarke, Jan Maher, Amy Cahillane, Christine Madore, Nan Sibley, Jessa McCormack

Decisions and areas for further discussion were made are in red. Comments made on the chat are in purple. Save the dates are in green.  Responses to questions that came in by the time that these notes were written are in olive.

Updates

Status of 42 Cleveland Street—Alyssa Larose (A clarification of the Cleveland Street discussion has been submitted by Alyssa LaRosa.  This has been added at the end of these minutes.)
Applications for 42 Cleveland Street are now available for first time homebuyers.  For an application:  https://fcrhra.org/affordable-homeownership/

Greenfield Housing Study—Amy Cahillane
The City’s housing study is almost ready.  The presentation will be September 12th at 5:30 pm.  More information to come.  Save the date!

Discussions

The Hope Street Parking Lot Development—Christine Madore, Mass Housing Partnership

Christine’s attached presentation puts forward the steps that the city and community will be taking to develop the Hope Street lot into housing.  She does it far better than any notes that I would take can do.  So please take a look at it.  We are looking at a 2-3 year process before a shovel digs into the ground.  So, we are in for many discussions about this.  For additional information, Christine suggested reviewing the state’s Chapter 30B manual https://www.mass.gov/doc/the-chapter-30b-manual-procuring-supplies-services-and-real-property-legal-requirements-recommended-practices-and-sources-of-assistance-9th-edition/download 

I received a couple of questions via email prior to the meeting.  Those are included in Christine’s presentation.  We also had some questions in our discussion and I will try to outline them below.

One key issue to be aware of is that a declaration of surplus property will require a 2/3 vote of the City Council.  We are likely to have some work to do when we get to that point.

To keep in mind: right now zoning for the Hope Street lot is that the parcel is zoned for 24 units in any one building.  So, if the community and the city administration agrees that we want more than 24 apartments on that site, how we do that will be an important part of the discussion.  The more buildings the greater the cost of the development.  If we all agree on a number of units above 24 and decide to do it with one building, we will need to go to the Zoning Board of Appeals to ask for a variance.

We know that there is a great need for accessible housing in town.  If we directly ask for universal design in our request for proposals, we may find that the price of development goes up significantly.  Christine suggested language like “age friendly development” as a way to approach that issue.  We could, however, offer extra points for universal design as the designs are scored.

As she spoke, Christine stated that the more specific our requests are, the more likely that we will have fewer bids and that those bids may be very expensive.  So, we are involved in a balancing act here.

There is a lot of emphasis on environmentally friendly and sustainable design in the Housing Bond Bill.  We should keep that in mind as we consider this development.  It will both be more sustainable financially in the long run and will make the applications to the state for funding for this project more attractive.

In the Housing Bond Bill there is a discussion of and funding for social housing. This housing involves public or non-profit partial ownership of a development.  While it is an interesting model, we may find it more difficult to get a developer interested in such a project.  It also adds liability to the city if it is partially publicly owned.  Considering how difficult it has been to find developers to build in Greenfield, we need to carefully consider whether this is a direction that is right for us at this time.

One of the questions that was sent to me was about the possibility of having a playground or some other kind of park that would be open to the neighborhood at large as part of the project.  This creates questions for private developers.  Again, this could be a place where we award more points and offer a very specific agreement about care and liability within the contract of a developer.

We would also need to make sure that whatever income restrictions are part of the plan are put into the agreement with the developer.  If we want them to be “in perpetuity”, then they should at least say 99 years in the agreement.

If there are other questions, please let me know and I will forward them on to Christine.  If you send them to me, then when I get the answer back, I can send them out to everyone after Christine responds.

Homeless Encampments

Amy Clarke spoke about the fact that there has been debris around the Green River Cemetery left by unhoused folks who were living there and then got flooded out during bad rainstorms.  Susan said that she had met that day with Larry Thomas from the Wildflower Alliance who said that there were also several additional sites that needed to be cleaned up.  Amy explained that she, her husband, and Larry had worked out a plan for the Green River Cemetery and that she hoped that the DPW could waive their fees for some of the larger items that would need to be disposed of.  Susan said that she would call the city to see if that could be done.

Shaundell mentioned that this is the kind of thing that the EMERG Coalition would handle if it is fully activated.  She asked that folks contact Community Action Executive Director, Claire Higgins chiggins@communityaction.us to encourage her to allow the CoC to move ahead with the coalition even though the CoC is not fully staffed.

Peg mentioned that the Source to the Sea clean-up will take place on September 28th and we could add the additional sites that Larry mentioned to Susan to that list.  Susan will check with Larry about the addresses of the additional sites and see if he wants to do this. Larry thought that this is an interesting idea but was concerned that since these areas are peoples’ homes, the clean-up crews might be intrusive.  He is going to consider it some more and get back to Susan.

Nan mentioned that now that Maria Burge has been made the police outreach liaison by the city, she might also be able to help with clean-up of some of the sites.

Status of the Days Inn

There is a rumor going around that this winter the Days Inn will end its contract with the state to house migrants there.

Here is the response from Erin Forbush about that issue:

Hello Susan, thank you for checking in with me about the rumor, I have also heard the same rumor.  Our initial contract ends at the end of the year, but we and I believe the hotel have every intention of continuing to operate out of the Days Inn into next year.

If that rumor is true, we will have to consider several things:

• What happens to the 45 migrant families that are presently living there?
• Will the Days Inn then become available for winter housing of unhoused individuals?
• What, if anything, is our role in trying to deal with these issues?

If that rumor is not true, we then have to consider:

• What options do we have for winter housing of unhoused individuals?
• What role do we have in trying to deal with this issue?

Housing Bond Bill

Here’s a synopsis of the 181 page bill….the good, the bad and the we will have

Let’s get the bad out of the way…the following were not included in the bill:
The transfer fee
The rural set aside
The set aside for communities of under 40,000 people
The set aside for seasonal communities
The tenant opportunity to purchase provisions

The wait and see….
Throughout the entire bill there are statements about regional equity, but there is not any definition of what that means.  So we are still going to have to push for our fair share of funding.  But the regional equity statements do give us some leverage.

The good…
There are notations throughout the bill that sustainability, energy efficiency and green technologies are to be used as much as possible.

Without going into the exact amounts of money available for each area (after all this is a 5 year bond bill and when you start getting into the tens of millions and billions, things kind of get lost in translation), the following areas will receive significant funding:

Housing for disabled people including ADUs and improvement of housing for accessibility, both public housing and housing developed by private developers

Supportive housing, like the housing that is part of the Wells Street shelter development

Housing ownership programs for first time homebuyers and communities who have be unable to be part of the housing market due to redlining and discrimination

Housing stabilization and investment for very low income residents including a fund for small property acquisition (Greenfield is not among the communities able to take advantage of this provision)

Renovation, remodeling and reconstruction of public housing

Demonstration projects for public housing including cost effective innovations and replicable solutions involving regional collaborations

Housing innovations for families and individuals who are at or below 30% Area Median Income (AMI)

Housing built by non-profits for individuals and families who are at or under 110% of AMI with not less than 25% of the residents at 60% AMI or less.

Middle income housing through the Massachusetts Housing Finance Administration

Capitalization of surplus property disposition

A large number of local earmarks were part of the bill, for Greenfield and Franklin County there were three:  $500,000 for Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity to build a warehouse for construction materials; $500,000 to the City of Greenfield for affordable senior or mixed use housing; $500,000 to Rural Development Inc for technical assistance

A smart growth housing fund

A fund for the production of for sale below market housing for first time homebuyers and disadvantaged individuals

Grants and Technical Assistance for municipal and regional applicants for planning and locally driven initiatives regarding community development and housing production

A fund for infrastructure development which may be very helpful to the smaller communities in Franklin County and parts of Greenfield which do not have sewer service and where new housing might be built

Assistance to cities and towns for revitalization of blighted neighborhoods and where there are weak housing markets

Low cost capital funding for developments where at least 20% of the units are for people between 60% and 120% of AMI

And two more good things:

The provisions to seal eviction records for evictions over 7 years past and for evictions that were unfounded and reversed by the courts.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are now allowed by right in all single family zoned housing areas in the state

Next meeting:  Monday, September 9th at 6:30 pm on Zoom….please save the date

P.S.

I (Alyssa LaRose) wanted to clarify the zoning discussion around the Hope Street lot below.  The section of the zoning that pertains to Multi-Family development is: ~ 200-7.2. Multifamily dwellings.  Under Section B. (4) is the following language:

More than one (1) building may be placed on one (1) lot, but no structure may contain more than twenty-four (24) dwelling units and no more than six (6) dwelling units shall be served by a single primary entrance. Each structure will be separated by a minimum of forty (40) feet. The Zoning Board of Appeals may allow more than twenty-four (24) dwellings per building in existing structures being converted to multifamily units.

The zoning could be changed (see strikethrough) to allow for more than 24 units per building, regardless if in new construction or an existing building, by Special Permit. Forcing two structures for anything over 24 units makes development less cost effective as each building will need its own duplicate systems – elevator, HVAC, electrical etc. instead of being able to share…

Typically, variances are only given because of a site-specific constraint that otherwise makes the property not developable. I am not sure Hope Street would meet the criteria for a variance.

I provided this suggestion to the consultants working on the Greenfield Housing Study. I am not sure if it made it into the final recommendations, but you could check with them.