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[Music] good evening and welcome back to buy line this is our public affairs show here at Amherst media and it's co-sponsored by the Amherst League of Women Voters we're trying to help people here in town keep up with changing dynamics of our new town government and most of the time we have counselors and town staff etc but occasionally we have people from committees that are not town council committees but are busy doing work in town and so today we have a return guest with John hornik who is from our Housing Trust and you are the chairman I'm there you are the chair and we'll talk a little bit and remind people who you are in a minute we also have Joe and Campbell from the Valley CDC she came across the river today to have a conversation with us welcome and the Valley CDC does serve Amherst as you will find out in just a minute but let's start with John please just remind us the Housing Trust is the Housing Trust was established about five years ago by town meeting its goal really is to support the development of affordable housing for low-income or lower-income individuals that can include families elderly persons individuals who are homeless individuals who are working and simply cannot afford the rents or afford to buy a house most of the time in Amherst without some form support we have nine members and those members are appointed by the town manager with the approval of Town Council in fact the town manager himself is now a member of the Housing Trust errific new member who really welcomed having Paul on the county appointed himself he appointed himself well actually the town council appointed him at his recommendation yes the state statute requires that a key town official be part of this and the more Paul with the statute the more he felt that it pointed to him mm-hmm so okay that's why yes so you're fully all of all the seats are filled on your board but at some point some of those seats do turn over so if people are interested someday and serving on the trust they could fill out the form online and get themselves in the queue to be considered when they were opening absolutely or if they have questions they can contact me excellent through the town or just Greg do you have any subcommittees that people who are not on your board get to apply to sit on we do we have a homelessness subcommittee that does not require formal appointment we've had other committees in the past there are no active committees at the moment but we're looking to create a new committee that would focus on the issue of access to rental housing in Amherst and how we can improve access so when that committee gets created how do people know it's time to apply honestly staff 2-bit we don't have a standby on that one folks we'll figure that out and we'll try to find a way to make sure you know so that people in town can can step up to the plate and and try to help out and so now let's talk with you Joanne for a minute about who you are and where you come from you live in Northampton you're the executive director of the Valley CDC and the Valley CDC is CDC is a nonprofit corporation we've been around since 1988 we are as a non-profit we have a board of directors who provides oversight to the agency and strategic planning and those folks are locally based Lea the liver work in our primary communities of Amherst Northampton East Hampton or Hadley currently we don't have anyone sitting on excuse me on the board from Amherst we've had some folks who used to live in Amherst like Peter Jessup is our board chair and we also have a number of committees where non board members can sit so we have a number of committees and we have some immersed with one of our a tenant who lives in one of our buildings in Amherst is on our community engagement committee excellent and so you work on affordable housing and homeownership program and small business so we've developed probably about close to 300 units of affordable housing in Amherst Northampton and East Hampton but the majority the units being in Northampton and we just finished the lumber yard for folks who are familiar with where the old lumberyard building was on Pleasant Street fifty-five apartments family housing and we have a project under development very similar to a project we're going to talk about today Sargent house on Bridge Street where we ran in construction for thirty-one small studio apartments for a variety of and again that's over in it's over northeast but you've recently been working on a project here in Amherst as long as you have the Talking Stick why don't we talk about 122 Northampton Road right so what's going on with that okay so I think just a little bit of history is that we have been working we've been asked by the town of Amherst to find a location that could serve housing for single persons or with a variety from people who are coming out of homelessness people maybe with developmental or mental health disabilities and people who were low wage earners and retirees a whole slew of folks but basically the common thread was their low income and so we had a planning grant that's from the commune developed Block Grant program that the town is a mini entitlement community and we worked for about two years looking at sites in in town it's very hard to find housing and be able to get site control of it because of the great demand for student housing we were able to finally find a property that we think is very appropriate for this kind of housing on Route 9 which is the 132 Northampton Road and so we are plan is to develop 28 units of single person housing again small studios which will have a bathroom in kitchenette about 250 square feet each apartment with some common area as well as support service area and property management staff I can talk about who we think we're gonna house there that would be great totally new construction no so there is a solution both okay correct so that the 132 Northampton Road is a single-family house currently yeah on slightly less than an acre of land and we plan to take part of the house down but keep sort of the main bones of the house and build an addition to that okay and that'll be 28 units and you've already mentioned the kinds of individuals that you hope to house there how can you say any more about that yeah so our plan at this point in time is 10 units would be set aside for people coming out of homelessness two units would be set aside for clients of the Department of Mental Health eight units would be set aside for people who are earning up to 50% of the median income which is about 30-something thousand dollars and eight units would be set aside for folks up to 80 percent of the area median income which for a single person is about forty nine thousand so it's a kind of mixed use property there's lots of different kind of people living there yes and once everybody settled in there it's going to be like any other small apartment building but you find anywhere else in town or elsewhere yes okay and did I hear you say that it's going to be staffed yes so I mean again we are working for and I can give you an update on sort of where we're at so we're working on a project eligibility letter which allows us to go for zoning for under the comprehensive permit but currently we're we would have some level of property management staff as well as community resident services person so we haven't worked out all the services in the building well so people who are in transition or struggling with certain things there's going to be somebody there with the proper training and access to other support services correct and again you think this would be open and operating assuming that everything falls into place permits and everything else twenty eight twenty to twenty twenty-two okay very good thank you stand by twenty twenty two and now let's have a quick update on East Street yes you talked about that the last time you were on the show where are we now yes the last time we talked about a project at the old East Street school site which may or may not include the school depending upon issues with lead and asbestos in the building and whether those can be managed or not Town Council approved the use of that site for housing development last April and the town put a request for proposals on the street and the due date now for proposals is mid-october October 15th so we are hoping to see proposals from developers we expect to see a minimum of 24 sorry a minimum of 16 units that would be affordable on the site there may be additional units as well it's really we're looking to see what the developers proposed I can't imagine more than a total of 30 units and it could well be less because it's not a very large site but we are looking toward proposals within the next week or two and we hope we do see a developer coming forward the developer would receive the authorization once they go through appropriate steps to get a 99-year lease on the property and to build whatever is a pro proposed that the town approves excellent and it will be competitive in terms of selecting a developer yes the request for proposal is open and the town has had a number of increase at this point I couldn't say how many are likely to bid on it okay and Valley CDC interested or not so we did receive the RFP we have reviewed it we have taken we've participated in the site plan visit and have submitted a number of questions to the town procurement so Stan stated as to whether or not you actually apply correct and we can't talk any more about this because we don't want to sour your ability to compete for the project when you decide to put it in so that's a summary of where we are on the various projects that we talked about last time but now let's look to the future in the final ten minutes we have you folks have developed a new policy yes and did that policy go before the Town Council yes policies give us the highlights the policy is in draft it should be reviewed not only by Town Council but the Planning Board and the Community Preservation Act committee because taken together all those groups have a significant role in town government on what happens to community housing and the goal of the Housing Trust is to put everybody on the same page so we recognize that there is a significant need in town but as it stands now the town does not have any goals with respect to development of new housing that is the goals aren't specific enough they're general about in what kind of housing we'd like to see but we don't have a number and that's one of the critical things that we think we need a new town policy for is the number the number the key that I think the number is the most important thing but there are other aspects of policy that are important we are proposing that the town commit to develop 250 new affordable units over the next five years or so that those units would be for lower-income families for individuals some of whom have been homeless [Music] that is critical because we really do have a need one of the things I've recently learned is the Amherst Housing Authority which distributes HUD mobile vouchers or section 8 vouchers in town has a great deal of difficulty when they give vouchers to people in having them actually be able to rent an Amherst in the last two calendar years 2017 and 18 they released 70 vouchers only 16 of those released up in Amherst or less than a quarter not enough supply not enough supply of affordable units and so that's just one example we know they're a long waiting list at Olympia Oaks and other places so we need new units in town and the 132 Northampton Road and East Street school could those apply toward the your stated goal of 250 yes they absolutely would okay we also have other new projects that include affordable units but aren't exclusively affordable at North Square and North Amherst on University Avenue and another potential development on route 9 and where are we I'm sure you've looked at this in relation to the state's law that says each community should have at least 10% of their housing stock quote affordable for the variety of constituencies you've been mentioning so where are we in relation to 10% now and where would 250 put us in relationship to the 10% the goal for all communities okay we have a little under 1,100 units that are counted in the so called subsidized housing inventory the state which puts us a little over 11% so that's good we're over 10% the specific developments we were talking about would give us another hundred units toward the 250 and then ideally we'd get 250 on top of that so obviously that's going to add to the 1100 that we have now on the other hand there's other development for non subsidized housing that is occurring pretty regularly in the town now and so as a consequence in order to maintain a level above ten percent our current eleven isn't bad it might be bad if it's a little bit more than that we need to keep developing new affordable units to stay up with the development of the non subsidized housing and does your policy address the issue of the relationship to the state's goal of the ten percent do you have any kind of policy statements in there that relate to you know what the town's posture should be in that regard we don't specifically mention that but it's clear that the 250 units will keep us above the ten percent level that's one of the issues that's come up in discussion with Town Council and and with others the town also has resources that we expect to be devoted to this that's something that the town is done in in the past primarily Community Preservation Act funds have used been used there's Community Development Block Grant funds we're now starting to use as with East Street Town surplus property and also most recently the town developed tax incentive financing program that helped to support the north square project in north Amherst so the town needs to put up some money although honestly the that money is used to leverage a much larger proportion of the development course primarily from grants or contracts with the Department of Housing and Community Development okay are there any other policy statements that are embedded in your new proposed policy for the town that we haven't touched on that you want to tell the viewers about so that they can understand when they hear more about this what what are the elements of this of this plan well consistent with the goals of the housing trust the focus of the new development should be on people who have lower income whether their families or individuals and when we say lower income we're not talking about people who make very very little money exclusively that would include for example for a family of four a level of income that would be around seventy one thousand dollars a year according to the current HUD standards for eighty percent area median income so we're talking about there and also for individuals where the standards around forty nine thousand dollars individuals who work in our community they work for the town they work for the university they work for Amherst College and these are people who find it very difficult to either purchase housing or rent housing in Amherst because all of those costs are going up so it's important that we pay attention as a town to the needs of that population we don't want to be a colleague of mine said a town of only students and empty nesters which is exactly what the population trend is right now at this particular point any other policy points that you want to raise well one of the major obstacles to this kind of development not just an Amherst but across the nation is in zoning and that's one of the reasons why we're talking to the Planning Board and bringing them into this as well for example one mention one person mentioned the possibility of expanding the inclusionary zoning bylaw to require inclusionary zoning for new developments of a certain size equally significant the town received a grant from mass Housing Finance to look into the development of a forty-hour district a forty-hour district is one it's really an overlay of the town zoning map so there's a portion of the community that's defined in which we would allow more intense development than the zoning will us currently permit so for example if you have the center of town we've already seen the development of some new larger buildings that might include some others that would increase the population downtown that would include 20% affordable housing under state guidelines for forty are the town would also receive funds from the state to support that the town itself and it would also receive funds for the schools if those included families with students adding to the school system and it would make the town a priority for infrastructure funding from mass works so there variety of benefits to the town going into the forty our program and we think this makes sense for Amherst on October 24th actually there'll be the I think it's the third or fourth of public meetings to discuss forty are when our consultants will come in and talk about what they think the town should do and an important piece of that is design guidelines so that we don't get anything developed but the kinds of new construction makes sense for a Murs and so it's interesting because most of what we've been talking about so far sounds like individuals whether they're seniors or homeless or persons with disability challenges or mental health problems so it's most the most of those we've been talking about have been about individuals and trying to make sure that we can have places for people who want to live in towns to stay in town based on affordability now you're talking a little bit more on the family side because forty are basically assumed you're going to be attracting some more families or you're gonna be holding families in town and they may be growing families and so the state recognizing that that's been a barrier to approving affordable housing projects for families created this new program the 4tr which is not so new anymore but hopefully they're continuing to fund it because it provides that important school subsidy within the 40-yard program that really helps make it possible for communities that want to make sure that there's room for affordable housing for families that there is that help and families need to be an important component of this program since the year 2000 we estimate that Amherst has 700 fewer families with school-aged children and according to data from the State Department of Education there are over a thousand fewer school-aged children living in Amherst so as I said earlier we don't want to become a community of solutions and elders right we need to bring families back into the communities and hold families that are in the community in the community so they don't have to leave to find housing they can afford yes Hickory Ridge what do you have to say about that the town is poised to purchase Hickory Ridge it's really up to Town Council at this point Hickory Ridge whether people know or do not know is a golf course or former golf course now that's on West Pomeroy Lane the plan would be for most of the golf course to go into conservation and to become part of Amherst land in that area there's a section of it also would be leased back to the current owners of Hickory Ridge for a solar development but there's also a strip of land right along West Pomeroy Lane that could be used for a variety of purposes including the development of housing there's an old Golf Club which could become housing or people have talked about as a possibility of a Senior Center you could see two family houses perhaps developed by Habitat for Humanity going up along with Parmelee so their variety of affordable housing possibilities there which I think are great we can't really clinton too much detail this week because as i said the town has actually not yet approved to purchase but once that happened those discussions but it would be a vision of a mixed use area with conservation housing some commercial and maybe some public entities such as the senior senator first time i've heard that that's very exciting as a resident of south hammers i'm very excited about that idea and we have a wonderful center downtown but it's really stretched to the to the to the max in terms of what can fit into that building so the final minute or so here november 4th you have a forum november 4th is a housing for him where there'll be discussion of the local issues and housing but another key part of our agenda for that meeting is hearing from senator Joanne Comerford and representative mindy dom about what's going on state level both respect to state budget changes and potential legislative changes that would help us locally as well as elsewhere to develop more affordable housing and we're looking forward to that event it will be 6:45 p.m. on Monday November 4th at the Unitarian Universalist Society fellowship hall or socials all social hall well terrific I look forward to seeing people there excellent and let me go back one more second on the I meant to ask you with regard to the plan the study the policy excuse me the town housing trust proposed policy does it require approval of the Town Council yes again I think the key is putting everybody on the same page so that for example if the Town Council approves the policy listen here town councillors and we come back with a plan for Hickory Ridge or the section of it which is buildable we can say well this is the policy that we've all agreed to and part of our implementation now involves this opportunity on Hickory Ridge to put some more affordable housing in that location excellent so you are a designated entity created by government Town Meeting you're proposing a policy and the Town Council should be your partner in helping to advance that policy is what I think you just said absolutely as should the Planning Board and Community Preservation Act even though they also need to have Council approve their own actions it's important that actions are generated there to support the development of affordable housing terrific thank you for your great work thank you as well it's wonderful to have you a partner here in town and thank you all for joining us and we'll see you again on the next show [Music]