HomeMy Public PortalAboutAffordable Housing Trust -- 2022-07-07 MinutesBrewster Housing Trust
JUIy 7, 2022, 5:OOpm Virtual Meeting
Housing Trust Members Present: Donna Kalinick, Tim Hackert, Maggie Spade -Aguilar, Madalyn
Hillis -Dineen, Vanessa Greene, Paul Ruchinskas
Others Present: Robert Tobias -Finance Committee liaison, Jill Scalise, Housing Coordinator
Absent: Ned Chatelain
1. Call to Order: Chair Hackert called the meeting to order at S:OOpm, read the required
notice for virtual meetings, and declared a quorum.
2. Citizen's Forum: Glenn Casey submitted an email to the Trust that was in the packet.
Chair Hackert said we would comment on that during the Millstone Community Housing
Agenda update item. Glenn Casey stated that he felt we were in a black hole regarding
the Millstone Community Housing project and wanted to know if he should contact
Peter Lombardi with questions and about where we were in terms of the proposed
timeline and milestones. He also asked about the Cape Cod Sea Camps and whether the
Trust would be involved in Community Housing needs there. He asked what the
difference between Community Housing, Affordable Housing and workforce housing.
Chair Hackert said we can address that in the Sea Camps update.
3. POAH &HAC proposal for Millstone Community Housing update- Ms. Scalise said that
the Select Board, Preservation of Affordable Housing and Housing Assistance Corp. are
still in negotiations for the Land Development Agreement and Lease with town legal
counsel involvement. Ms. Scalise had a site visit with the Department of Housing and
Community Development. Chair Hackert responded to Mr. Casey's email. He said that
POAH and HAC have not updated construction costs because they are nowhere close to
doing that. Ms. Kalinick said if you look at the timeline that was provided with the
proposal, it puts bidding for construction in July 2023, a year from now. Chair Hackert
said the project is still in execution of lease and LDA and they are behind in that
milestone but could potentially make up time later in the process. The Trust and
Housing Coordinator will be involved throughout the steps once the lease and LDA are
executed and there will continue to be updates at Trust meetings.
4. Housing Production Plan Update -Jill Scalise thanked members who attended the
Community Forum on June 16th, there was about 30 attendees in total. There was two
weeks of public comment after that. Barrett Planning is now making final adjustments,
based on comments and then, it will go to the Select Board and Planning Board in a joint
meeting for final approval on July 11th. We have received a lot of input over the last 5
months. This is really an update of our current HPP that we have used as a guidebook
over the last few years. Mr. Tobias said he thought affordable housing was up to 80%
AMI, Community Housing or Workforce Housing is 80% to 120%. Ms. Scalise said that in
the HPP, affordable housing is low to moderate income housing which is eligible to be
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on the SHI and is up to 807bA1V1I. Community Housing does not have a specific definition,
but it generally is up to 110%AMI which is the limit that the CPC and Trust are allowed
to work on. Chair Hackert said that workforce housing is generally used as a more
palpable way to describe housing. Ms. Scalise said workforce housing can be 80% to
120% but it is a difficult term as people are working at all AMI levels.
5. Housing Trust Goals and Priorities Update- Ms. Kalinick, Ned Chatelain, Mr. Lombardi
and Mimi Bernardo, our Finance Director are the work group for the financial planning
goal. Ms. Kalinick met with Mimi to go over the type of spreadsheet that they will use.
Once she is past the closing of the fiscal year, Ms. Bernardo will work on the worksheet
and then, their team will review that before it comes to the trust. In the meantime, Ms.
Kalinick will provide an end of the year statement of expenses and revenue, as she did
last year at the next meeting. This statement also informs the report that must be filed
with the CPC for reporting purposes to the State. She will have the expense report in
August and, hopefully, the first draft of the financial plan spreadsheet in September.
Ms. Scalise said for the Trust guidelines, Maggie and Tim suggested they use the
Eastham guidelines as the starting point. Ms. Scalise shared her screen and went
through the sections for Trust members to comment on. The document starts with the
Trust mission statement, goals, priority initiatives and roles and responsibilities as
defined by the Trust bylaw. Next is eligible activities including preservation with the use
of CPC funds and examples of what they can be used for. The next activity is the
Brewster Emergency Assistance Fund. This was only used once for an administrative
issue. Mr. Ruchinkas had commented that this was situational, and we shouldn't include
it. Ms. Kalinick said that she would like to look at the Chatham guidelines where they
had something like this that may have been a little broader. She is concerned there
maybe instances where a need doesn't fall into another category for assistance, and she
would like further discussion on it. Chair Hackert asked how much money is in the fund.
Ms. Scalise thought it was $10,000. Mr. Ruchinskas said he thought it was $5,000 and he
thinks this was a one-time situation and we don't need it. Chair Hackert was concerned
that we might need a rainy -day fund and asked where the money would go if we didn't
use it. Ms. Spade -Aguilar asked if this was CPC funds or not and was it housing related or
was it more in line with the COVID relief fund. Ms. Scalise said it was $5,000 and was to
aid homes on our SHI with administrative housing issues. Ms. Dineen -Hillis said she
recalled this was a specific issue that we needed to remedy, and we may not need it
anymore. Ms. Scalise said it was created to address any situation like the one that
occurred regarding taxes, but we have worked hard to avoid situations like this one. Ms.
Kalinick said we decided to use non -CPC funds. Ms. Kalinick said she pulled up the
Chatham Guidelines, but they have grants for people with housing problems. She will
look at with Ms. Scalise and bring it back to the Trust for review.
The next section is support programs which includes the Brewster Rental Assistance
program, run by the Trust, the Buy -Down program run by the CPC with a link to the
ready buyer program and the CDBG program with links to the home rehabilitation
program and the childcare voucher program. The following section is for creation of
housing to include rental housing and homeownership. Ms. Kalinick asked if this would
include assistance with the purchase of land for use of development of affordable
housing and if that is something we want to do. Chair Hackert said this is about site
control. Mr. Ruchinskas said he would be very cautious about providing money to
acquire for rental housing. Mr. Ruchinskas asked if we were considering this for support
of ADUs as well. Ms. Kalinick said Paul has a lot of expertise in this area and she would
defer to his expertise in terms of funding land. Ms. Kalinick said for funding ADUs, we
could only do that if there was a deed restriction. The Town had a ADU bylaw for deed
restricted units and it did not produce units, so we went to an ADU/ACDU bylaw that did
not require a restriction. Ms. Kalinick also suggested that we run the final draft by legal
counsel. Ms. Spade -Aguilar said that under the creation programs, we were using the
Trust creation guidelines so we would be funding rental housing like Millstone Road and
she is not sure how involved we get in Habitat homes or homeownership opportunities.
Her mindset was that we have our mission statement, priorities, and guidelines and
these are the programs that fall under that, and this is how someone might go about
applying for funding for the activities. She likes naming it guidelines and priorities, not
just guidelines. Chair Hackert asked if we should include deed restricted ADUs. Mr.
Ruchinskas said all the towns changed their ADU bylaws to remove the deed restricted
portion and he knows that CDP and HAC both have some funding assistance for ADUs,
and we should monitor that and revisit this in future use.
The next area is funding guidelines, modeled on Eastham. It defines that CPC funds must
comply with the CPC act. Preservations of homes already on the SHI would be $25,000
per home and would be in the form of a forgivable 15 -year loan. Ms. Scalise noted that
this is Eastham's, and it is actually for homes that are not on the SHI because they do
not have CDBG funding. This was removed from our draft guidelines. The next section is
for funding of the creation of new rental units. Mr. Ruchinskas asked that we include
homeownership in this section. The amount per award is $100,000 per unit with a
deferred loan. Ms. Scalise said this is a question about how much the Trust wants to
provide per unit and what the mechanism for the award would be, deed rider or other.
Ms. Kalinick said let's put this under the lens of Millstone Rd. She asked if the $100,000
was what Eastham had. Ms. Scalise said it is, but we have general provided $100, 000
per home ownership unit but around $30,000 per rental unit. Mr. Ruchinskas said the
CPC has an unofficial amount of $100,000 per the Habitat units but it has been less for
rental units. He recommended that we have an amount with an up to total maximum
per project. He also said that these are not usually handled as loans but as deed
restrictions. He would also advocate for having language that provides flexibility so if the
Trust wants to give more, they can. Mr. Hackert asked if we should we cap it at 1 million
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with $100,000 per unit. Mr. Ruchinskas said it depends how much money we have. Ms.
Kalinick said she likes Paul's idea of having a maximum amount; she thinks it might be
higher than 1 million. The Trust financial plan should help inform this decision. Ms.
Kalinick wondered if we will have put language in here that awards over $50,000 must
be approved by the Select Board or do we want to talk to the Select Board about
removing that provision from the Trust bylaw. Chair Hackert said why don't we put in
language about the maximum amount determined by the Trust and we will have to talk
to the Select Board. Ms. Scalise asked that members read through the draft and send
comments to her before the next meeting. Ms. Kalinick thanked the working group of
Jill, Maggie, and Tim. She is excited that we are going to have guidelines and an
application which is appropriate at this stage in Trust. We will take this item up at the
next meeting.
For the housing forum, Ms. Hillis -Dineen and Ms. Spade -Aguilar didn't have a chance to
collaborate but she likes town hall or the library as a potential place for the forum as it is
neutral. As for a date, she thinks we should stay away from September, maybe after
Indigenous People's Day. Maggie Spade -Aguilar said we should look into what date/day
we held it the last time and what works best for the participants. She thinks the Housing
Production Plan will greatly inform this. Ms. Kalinick said that town meeting is
tentatively November 14th. Ms. Spade -Aguilar and Ms. Hillis -Dineen will look into dates
the library is available as well as touch base with potential participants. Ms. Scalise said
that the last forum was held in late May, after Town meeting, on a weekday night. There
was a discussion about a weekend date. Ms. Kalinick said she thought it would be hard
for some of the social services agencies on a Sunday. The last one was at on a Thursday
night at 5pm. A Saturday might be possible. We had about 70 people the last time, we
did a lot of promotion, and it was the first event the trust held. Ms. Scalise said that we
did it as a housing fair first then the forum. There were a lot of different agencies who
were there.
6. Select Board Strategic Plan discussion and FY23-24 Plan input from Housing Trust- Ms.
Kalinick said the Select Board will be meeting on the 27th for their annual strategic
planning retreat. There is an area that addresses housing. The current approved plan
was in the packet, and we are being asked to weigh in on the housing goals, particularly
where we are a responsible party for 2 of the current goals. For current goals, there is
the financial planning goal. In the updated HPP, there is a goal to do the financial
planning then analyze if future funding streams are needed. The second the goal is to
the complete the Housing Production Plan which we are almost done with. The third
goal is to develop affordable housing off Millstone Rd. We should keep that one but add
more language. Ms. Kalinick has a few goals she would suggest: attain Housing Choice
designation and review zoning as it relates to increasing and expanding housing
opportunities. Trust comments will be submitted to the Select Board to consider. Mr.
Ruchinskas would also like to see some language about zoning to increase housing
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choice. Mr. Ruchinsl<as asked if we should have something about CDBG. Ms. Kalinick
said we can suggest as many goals as we think are important and that for CDBG whether
we continue to be the lead community which is a Select Board decision. Chair Hackert
proposed that we adopt Donna's comments with Paul's suggestions included to be
submitted to the Select Board. Ms. Spade -Aguilar said should we include explore looking
at existing structures for re -use, both municipal and private. This is also a proposed
strategy in the HPP.
7. Housing Coordinator Update including Serenity at Brewster and Brewster Woods and
Town Meeting -Ms. Scalise said for the CDBG, TRI has chosen to be the housing
rehabilitation sub -grantee. For the current grant, there were 8 Brewster projects and
$276,000 was encumbered to complete those. We have been receiving thank you notes
from participants who are thankful for things like not having to worry about their house
when it rains which is great to see. With the change in the 2022 AMIs, there will be
people who qualify who did not last year. We will be doing outreach. For the childcare,
10 families covering 13 kids were recipients. Ms. Scalise was inundated over the last
month with inquiries and calls for assistance for the affordable lotteries for Serenity and
Brewster Woods. In terms of Serenity, the work is progressing well, there were 70
applications for the 27 affordable units. We are waiting for a date for the lottery
drawing. Brewster Woods looks to open in September, they had about 250 applications.
Ms. Scalise was there today, and they are working hard on the interior. There was a nice
article in the Cape Cod Times about Brewster Woods and Serenity.
8. 212 Yankee Drive update, discussion and possible vote on next steps -Ms. Scalise and
Ms. Kalinick are going on a site visit tomorrow with the Building Commissioner. We have
pulled together all the information that we have compiled over the last few years, going
back to 2019 to determine what needed to be done to preserve this home. After the site
visit, we will have next steps to bring to the Trust. Ms. Kalinick said we will need to
develop an Invitation to Bid which takes about a month. There are advertising
requirements and usually a site visit. We must pay prevailing wage rates. It is important
to have the building department involved as their knowledge and oversight will be
important. We will develop a potential timeline for the bidding process, work to be
done, and next steps.
9. Cape Cod Sea Camps updates- Mr. Ruchinskas was not at the last meeting but noted
that the area on the Pond Parcel that is closer to Route 137 is in a Zone II water
protection area which develops tend to avoid and you would probably not develop near
the pond. He thinks that the Bay may be better for housing. Ms. Kalinick said the Pond
Parcel Committee has not really discussed housing yet in part because the Town is in the
process of hiring a consultant who will do discovery to make informed decisions. Also,
Ms. Kalinick noted that in terms of the Bay Parcel, it would be re -use of existing
structures, not building new. Ms. Kalinick said at the Bay Parcel, the new First Light
Beach has 51 spaces and opened July 1St. For the committees, we have a voting
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member, Paul Ruchinskas on the Pond Parcel and a liaison on the Bay Parcel Committee,
Maggie Spade -Aguilar. Maggie noted that they are still in the beginning stages, electing
officers and starting to throw out ideas. The focus was on getting the beach open. Ms.
Spade -Aguilar as a liaison can provide input. There is one building that has apartments
in it and it is unfortunate that we can't use it with the housing crisis, but we have to go
through the planning process. Decisions about Community Housing will probably not be
discussed for a while. Ms. Kalinick said one of the items in the scope of work of the
consultation is to assess the buildings to see which could be re -used. She also noted
there will be a robust community engagement process.
10. For Your Information: Flyer for the next Lower Cape Peer group meeting.
11. Any other business not anticipated: None
12. Approval of Minutes from June 2, 2022: Madalyn Hillis -Dineen moved to approve the
minutes of June 2,2022 with technical comment from Chair Hackert, Vanessa Greene
second. A roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar -Yes,
Vanessa Greene -Yes, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen -Abstain, Paul Ruch inskas-Abstain, Chair
Hackert-Yes.
13. Next Meeting: August 4, 2022, at S:OOpm format to be determined based on State and
Select Board action.
14. Adjournment: Paul Ruchinskas moved adjournment at 6:27pm, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen
second. A roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes,
Vanessa Greene - Yes, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen -Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, Chair Hackert-
Yes.
Respectfully Submitted,
Donna J. Kalinick
Assistant Town Administrator
Meeting Packet: https•//portal laserfiche com/Portal/DocView.aspx?id=173227&repo=r-
153f9d98
Approved August 4, 2022
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