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HomeMy Public PortalAboutAffordable Housing Trust -- 2023-02-02 MinutesBrewster Housing Trust February 21 2023,E 5:00pm Virtual Meeting Housing Trust Members Present: Donna Kalinick, Tim Hackert, Maggie Spade -Aguilar, Vanessa Greene, Ned Chatelain, Paul Ruchinskas, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen Others Present: Robert Tobias, Finance Committee Liaison 1. Call to Order: Chair Hackert called the meeting to order at 5*00pm, read the required notice for 'virtual meetings, and declared a quorum. 2. Citizen's Forum: Chair Hackert read the Citizen's Forum description and recognized Glenn Casey. Mr. Casey, 288 Fletcher Lane asked about the 1 million dollars in the Financial Flan and where the funds are coming from and if there is an expected application to the CPC and BAHT for this funding in the upcoming year. Mr. Casey about the ZBA comprehensive permit application and the waiver for height; if this is typically approved and why there was requests for a parking waiver for smaller spaces and a waiver from Water Quality Review, Mr. Casey disagrees with some of the environmental reports. a I Millstone Affordable Housing Property update: Ms. Kalinick said there are a few items in your packet. POAH & HAC have applied for their comprehensive permit. Notice has been provj'ded to abutters in compliance with applicable law and the full application is posted onithe website. The first hearing will be virtual on February 14t", if it is continued to March, those will be hybrid. Ms. Kalinick and Mr. Chatelain provided an update to the Select Boa`td about the Millstone Housing initiative and their filing for the comprehensive permit as well as the Town applying for technical assistance from Mass Housing Partnership, The Town has commonly applied for this technical assistance wheneverithere is a comprehensive permit in front of the ZBA. POAH & HAC did appear in front of'the Planning Board last week who recommended the project with waivers to the ZBA. Ms. Kalinick will attend the ZBA hearings as a member of the BAHT and as administration. Ms. Kalinick answered Mr. Casey's question about the 1 million dollars. The BAHT receives 50% of the forecasted short term rental tax as a policy through the Select BoaYd and voted on annually through the town budget at town meeting. Ms. Kalinick recently met with POAH & HAC and asked them for an updated financial proforma.!iThere are lots of different funding sources available right now through the State. Ms. Kalinick also said they brought to the Select Board's attention their purview for requests to DHCD regarding Local Preference and suggested they consult with the BHP and BAHT. You can ask for up to 70% Local Preference. You have to justify that ask and DHCD',has to approve it. Ms. Spade -Aguilar asked how our status of safe harbor effects the: comprehensive permit process. Ms. Kalinick said, regardless of the status of safe harbO, the ZBA is within their rights to hear and approve a comprehensive permit. When youtopen the hearing, the safe harbor status is entered as a statement of facts. Mr. Tobias asked if other towns CPA funds will be sought. Ms. Kalinick said that POAH & 1 ti F; I b HAC have 'Indicated that they intend to apply to some local towns in tandem with their Brewster ask. Ms. Kalinick explained that the regional preference is only when the school is in your town. We do not have a regional school in our town so that regional preference would not apply as it did with the Orleans project. is 4. Report of the presentation of Housing Trust Financial Pian to the Select Board: Chair Hackert noted that there was a positive article about the financial plan in the Chronicle today. Mr Chatelain said that the feedback from the Select Board was positive, and it was an important step in planning for the future of the housing program and reviewing the 50% allocation to the Trust. Ms. Kalinick said the Select Board was not scheduled to take a vote on it, but it is in their strategic plan and our strategic plan. It will be updated annually and will be part of the budget documents and will be provided to the Finance Committee, Mr. Ruchinskas said that if he had known that the plan would be used to review the 50% short term rental tax allocation, he would have pushed for more. Mr. Chatelain said this was a financial exercise and the Board will continue to review the policy. 5. 212 Yankee Drive project update, discussion, and vote to expend funds and recommend award on the Advertised Quote for Remediation: Ms. Kalinick said they put out an�aadvertised quote to do the remediation and demo work. They received 3 quotes which have been reviewed by TRI, Inc. The low bidder was Green Environmental, Inc. in the kamount of $38,125. The trust will be making a recommendation of award. She thinks we should authorize spending up to $40,000 in case there are any written change orders. Public works has assisted with the cleaning of the garage so the remediation work can e done. They also removed a few trees and the crumbling stone patio. Ms. Kalinick thanked DPW and their crew for their work at the property. There will be some minor items, like gravel that the Trust will need to pay for in relation to the DPW work. Mr. Ruchinskas asked if these funds will be coming from CPA funds or BAHT funds. He also thinks that we should authorize up to 45K. Ms. Kalinick said that would be great and would help cover some of the smaller items. Ms. Kalinick said that we do not have an answer on'sthe costs of the septic repairs yet. Ms. Kalinick said she is personally overseeing this project, working with TRI. Ms. Kalinick said the remediation is CPC eligible, but not all of the smaller items. Ms. Kalinick will be putting together a spreadsheet with all of the expenses, and which were CPC eligible. Paul Ruchinskas moved to authorize up to $45,000 for the remediation work and other small items, Ned Chatelain second. A roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes, Vanessa Greene - Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, Ned Chatelain-Yes, Madalyn Hillis - Dineen -Yes, Chair Hackert-Yes. n 4� y 7 z } f lI A' 6. Discussion of Aspen and Jackson Hole Affordable Housing Program (APCHA): Chair Hackert said that h`e provided information in the packet for review. It is not known at this time if the Trust would be able to be involved with a program like this as the Trust is limited to work on housing up to 100% of the AMI. Chair Hackert provided some background. The APCHA program was begun in 1975. They now have over 3,000 units that are used for workforcehousing. It has to the sole residence of one of the occupants and they have to work a minimum of 1,500 hours in one of the communities that is a participant. They have similar issues with many second homes in a resort area as the Cape has. The second article is about a transfer tax that is charged in Michigan. The third article is about the ,buying of deed restrictions in Vale where they have about 175 units now which is funded through a sales tax increase. Provincetown, the Vineyard and Nantucket have asked our local legislative delegation to file legislation to allow this on Cape. There was an article in the Chronicle about the importance of this program to the Cape. The Cape Commission had a representative from Aspen present about their program. Chair Hackert said he also understands that the Home Consortium has discussed this. Ms. Spade-Aguilar said she is aware of these programs and there was a proposal from Jay Coburn and Tucker Holland to fund affordable housing through a real estate transfer fee on homes,above $500,000. Chair Hackert said there has also been discussion about a 1% tax to fund affordable housing. Ms. Spade-Aguilar said it would be state legislation that towns could adopt on a local level, Chair Hackert said he is supportive of these programs to fund affordable housing. Mr. Chatelain said he is very excited abouttthe prospect of deed restricting year round homes. We spend a lot of time getting units on our SHI list, but 40B has not done what is was intended to and maybe we need to look at other options for providing more housing. Chair Hackert said Vale is struggling with the verification piece of the program. We will have more information at the next meeting. s. 7. Discussion of BAHT oversight of Buydown Program and possible vote: We discussed with the CPC that the Housing Trust should have oversight of the Buy Down program. This is a two-step process of voting to approve the BAHT oversight of the program and the second step is to create the regulations. Ms. Kalinick said that Jill Scalise is the person whib handles all of the technical parts of the program, and we need to wait for her to return to discuss the program. Ms. Kalinick said that at their last�meeting, the CPC voted to allocate up to $62,500 for the re-sale at 14 Yankee Drive. With this vote, there are no more funds in the CPC buy down program, We will need to put an application to the CPC TO, funding for the BAHT program. In the meantime, we are waiting for legal counsel torreply if someone needed buy down funds whether they could apply to the Trust under the funding guidelines. Maggie Spade- Aguilar asked if our role is oversight of the program and if this will add more work for Jill and should we wait until we have the housing assistant. Ms. Kalinick said right now, the applications go to Jill, and she handles the application and vetting process then brings it to CPC to take a vote on the request. She then works with the bank, attorneys, and re-sale agent to get the funds to the closing. It is not more work for Jill right now; the difference will be that the applications will come to the BAHT to review. Ms. Kalinick said that when we get to hiring an assistant, Jill will be involved with deciding what tasks that person would take 3 P i h r on in order to leave Jill will more of an oversight role. Mr. Ruchinskas would like to the Trust put ih an acquisition request to the CPC in July as well to pursue our next project. This will b a discussion for a future agenda item. Chair Hackert said we do need to discuss thi's at a future meeting and how we will build up a pot of money for future acquisitions. Madalyn Hillis -Dineen moved that the Trust take over oversight of the buy down program, Ms. Spade -Aguilar second. A roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick- Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes, Vanessa Greene - Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, Ned Chatelain-Yes, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen -Yes, Chair Hackert-Yes, 8. UpdateRental Assistance Program, recommendation from Housing Assistance Corporation (HAC) and possible vote: Ms. Kalinick said that she had a request from HAC to consider allowing rental assistance for rents up to 120% of the FMR. Ms. Kalinick included the minutes from the last discussion that the Trust had about rent reasonabl6ness and also, what 120% of the FMR includes. DHCD has recently approved going up to 120% of the FMR. We had in the original rules up to 110% FMR and we changed that to rent reasonable as determined by HAC. We do not have to change that language, but since this an increase, Ms. Kalinick wanted the Trust to discuss this. She suggests that we change the language to rent reasonableness as determined by HAC and/or up{to 120% FMR. Ms. Kalinick said there has been an uptick in requests and she has been fielding a lot of calls for housing assistance. Mr. Chatelain said that while he supports this request, he is concerned about the effect on the market and the rents that are being charged. He believes a larger policy discussion needs to take'place on the state and local level about this issue. Chair Hackert said he believes Serenity had this issue where they had to lower some of the market rents to lease up because they were charging t6 much based on what they thought they could get in the market. Ms. Kalinick said this is simple supply and demand issue though the current rents are horrifying but she agrees that there is a limit and that the rents and housing prices cannot kelp going up. Ms. Spade -Aguilar said this is a struggle for her. With 4013, 25% of the units are deemed affordable and the rest are market rates. She is concerned about the limit of money we have at $500 per month rental assistance over 3 years. She wonderedy# we could add on additional families because we did not use all the funds in the beginning. She is concerned that those who are most in need may not get funds. Ms. Kalinick said in the beginning people were using RAFT and other sources of funds for rental assistance, so we still have plenty of money. The last time she checked there were 6 people i the program and if we ran out of funds, we would re -apply to the CPC. When we originally started the program, we didn't know how many people would apply and now we will have data to decide how much money this program needs. The rental assistancelis meant to be for 3 years, but she is not sure that is realistic, and people will not still neled assistance after 3 years. She explained that HAC has expanded their outreach and application for assistance, and they match people with available funds, not just th;e local rental assistance program. Chair Hackert asked if we include the 120% FMR language are we encouraging landlords to charge more. Ms. Kalinick said she thinks that was Mr. Chatelains point, but HAC already has applications in hand for people who are being charged 120% FMR, Ms. Kalinick moved that the Trust update the rental 4 a a 4 1 assistance'guidelines to include the language, rent reasonable as determined by HAC, but not to'`exceed 120 FMR, Mr. Ruchinskas seconded. A roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes, Vanessa Greene - Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, 1. Ned Chatelain-Yes, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen -Yes, Chair Hackert-Yes. 9. BAHT Town Report— Discussion and possible vote: Chair Hackert thanked Ms. Spade - Aguilar for' preparing the report. He had some minor edits. Ms. Spade -Aguilar said if anyone has edits or changes to send to her. Ms. Spade -Aguilar moved to approve the report with any minor edits to be reviewed with Ms. Kalinick, Vanessa Greene second. A roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes, Vanessa Greene - Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, Ned Chatelain-Yes, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen -Yes, Chair Hackert-Yes. 10. Housing Coordinator update; Ms. Kalinick said that the lease up of Brewster Woods continues and folks are beginning to move in. She thanked the Cape Cod Regional Transit for';placing a bus stop at Frederick Court that will serve the residents of Frederick and Wells ,Court and Brewster Woods. Many residents at Frederick Court have had to walk up to: 4the Council on Aging to get the bus. The placement of this new bus stop is a real win. Ms. Kalinick continues to receive a lot of calls for assistance with housing. In addition to working on 212 Yankee Drive, she is also continuing to work with DHCD on a single-family home on our SHI that the Trust paid to have a home inspection on which has been a good tool in working with the mortgage company on the needed repairs so a re -sale can happen. Ms. Kalinick included a flyer for the re -sale of 14 Yankee Drive. 11, Cape Cod lea Camps updates, Trust member for Pond Committee: Ms. Spade -Aguilar said therepas a forum held to garner input on the opening of the pool to Brewster residents. The Committee discussed the results of the forum and established guidelines for opening the pool, hours of operation, programs, and membership fees. An RFP will be issued for management of the pool. Many residents requested early swim hours. There will be a senior membership options since 1/3rd of our population fits into that category a;rid a scholarship funds for those who need assistance paying for a membership. Mr. Chatelain added that there is hope that Reed Hilderbrand will be presenting discovery soon. For the pond property committee, Chair Hackert said there was an art jcle in the Chronicle about the pool. He also explained that the covid fund will be turned !into a good neighbor fund that can assist with membership costs. He listened in on the Pond Property committee meeting. It was focused on brainstorming for future uses and also, to review the pond video. Ms. Kalinick said the committee is also working on short term uses which is challenging due to access. Chair Hackert is wiling to serve on the Pond Property Committee. Ms. Kalinick moved to recommend Tim Hackert for appointment as a voting member on the Pond Property Committee, Ms. Hillis -Dineen second. A, roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes, Vanessa Greene - Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, Ned Chatelain-Yes, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen - Yes, Chair�Hackert-Yes. The Committee thanked Mr. Ruchinskas for his service on the Committee. 1 5 i R i ,t 12. Discussion of Meeting Format: Ms. Kalinick said that next month we will be meeting in person. TK!e requirement is to have to a quorum of the Committee in person and the Chair has to be in person to chair. Committee members need to attend at least 50% of the meetings in person. The public will have the option to attend in person or remotely. Ms. Kalinick said she will send out an email before the next meeting to see who will attend in person. 13. For Your Information: Chair Hackert asked if Mr. Ruchinskas could work with him before the next rri'eeting on the CPC annual funding request. Chair Hackert met with Brewster Conservation Trust (BCT) who has a lot of land acquisition experience to see if they assist the Trust. BCT will discuss this and get back to us, We will also need to look at potential town owned land for housing when Jill returns. The COVID fund change to a Good Neighbor fund will be discussed at an upcoming Select Board meeting. CDP and Seamans Bank have set up a program for the funding of ADU's. Ms. Kalinick said she would send out a reminder about the Housing Institute trainings, There is one for the ADU program. She also reminded everyone that they need to complete the ethics training. There will be a vote on Monday night by the Board to hold a special town meeting on March 611 in response to a Citizen's petition. �1 14. Any other business not anticipated: None 15. Approval of Minutes from January 5, 2023: Mr. Chatelain moved to approve the January 5,,2023 minutes with technical comments from Chair Hackert, Vanessa Greene second. A Xoll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes, Vanessa Greene - Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, Ned Chatelain-Yes, Madalyn Hillis Dineen - Abstain, Chair Hackert-Yes. k 16. Next Meeting: March 2, 2023 at 5PM r' 17. Adjournment: Paul Ruchinskas moved adjournment at 6:28PM, Maggie Spade -Aguilar second. A roll call vote was taken. Donna Kalinick-Yes, Maggie Spade -Aguilar - Yes, Vanessa Greene - Yes, Paul Ruchinskas-Yes, Ned Chatelain-Yes, Madalyn Hillis -Dineen - Yes, Chair,ackert-Yes. Respectfully Subrrjitted, y Donna Kalinick, Assistant Town Manager Meeting Packet: 153f9d98 Approved March :j D