← Boards & Commissions Committee · 2026-02-02 · Boards & Commissions Committee Meeting 2/2/26
Reappointment of Helena Widtfeldt, 44 Briggs Street, Melrose MA to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, for a two year term, said term to expire on the last day of January, 2028.
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
A. (ID # 2026-178): Reappointment of Helena Widtfeldt, 44 Briggs Street, Melrose MA to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, for a two year term, said term to expire on the last day of January, 2028. Motion to Recommend to full council made by Councilor Vandiver Seconded by Councilor Park All were in favor and motion passed RESULTS: ACCEPTED [UNANIMOUS] TO: City Council AYES: Elizabeth Kowal, Christopher Park, Kim Vandiver, Ryan Williams NAYS: None ABSENT: Cal Finocchiaro, Bradley Freeman Comments on Discussion: -Councilor Park asked what is your biggest challenge right now? She replied that it's having sufficient funding to make grants to entice developers to Melrose, and to let the broader community know that the Trust Fund exists to attract more developers. -Councilor Kowal asked how do you define Affordable? She replied that it's for individuals earning 80% AMI or below. -Councilor Vandiver asked regarding increasing their funding, what do they want to see from the council or other parties? She replied that they are still figuring out their strategic plan, but CPA (Community Preservation Act) would be helpful and a steady small flow of cash would be great. V. ADJOURNMENT The City of Melrose does not discriminate based on disability and is committed to hosting accessible meetings and events. Individuals with disabilities who need auxiliary aids and services for effective communication, written materials in alternative formats, or reasonable modifications in policies and procedures, in order to access the programs and activities of the City of Melrose or to attend meetings, should contactthe City’s ADA Coordinator, Polina Latta platta@cityofmelrose.org. Motion to Adjourn by unanimous consent made by Chair Williams at 7:27 PM Meeting was adjourned 2 3 From: Helena Widtfeldt < > Sent: Monday, January 5, 2026 9:49 AM To: MacDonald, Diane <dmacdonald@cityofmelrose.org> Subject: Re: January 2026 Reappointment Affordable Housing Trust Good morning, Diane. I am happy to hear about my reappointment to the Housing Trust board. During 2025, I provided input and assisted in the shaping of key documents establishing the guidelines and processes for the operation of the Housing Trust. This included establishing overall goals & strategies as well as developing guidelines and an application process. T
Transcript
▶ 1:03 Ryan Williams: And we have one appointment before us tonight. ID number 2026 dash 1 78, the reappointment of Helena Whitfield of 44 Briggs Street, Melrose to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund for a two year term, said term to expire on the last day of January, 2029. We're very fortunate that Ms. Whitfield is with us today. Thank you so much for coming. Um, and I'd like to open the floor to you Sure. To talk about your experience. Yeah,
▶ 1:26 Speaker 1: I'd love to thank you for having me. Um, very honored to be reappointed to the board. Um, it's been an exciting year. I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with the Affordable Housing Trust Board, but it was established back in 2020
▶ 1:38 Speaker 2: and, um, it was not fully staffed with the board until this past calendar year. So it's been our first year kind of up and running.
▶ 1:44 Speaker 1: So it's been an exciting year to kind of get things off the ground.
▶ 1:47 Speaker 2: Um, been very happy to be a part of that. We've established our guidelines.
▶ 1:49 Speaker 1: We've already made our first, um, grantee, um, appoint, uh, amount out to the Melrose Affordable Housing Corporation, which was really exciting to have some deed restricted units in Melrose, um,
▶ 2:01 Speaker 2: helping them support that goal.
▶ 2:05 Speaker 1: Um, my background is in affordable housing. I work for a consulting firm that, um, does affordable housing consulting with the federal government as well as public housing authorities. So, um, this dovetails nicely with my own professional experience,
▶ 2:18 Speaker 2: but also it's on the other kind of other side of the coin where I typically work with public agencies. This is a little bit more working with potentially private sector grantees that are looking to develop or rehab affordable
▶ 2:28 Speaker 1: housing here in the community. So, very excited to continue, hopefully my role on the board. And yeah, if anyone has any questions or thoughts.
▶ 2:37 Ryan Williams: Thank you. Any questions from counselors? Yes. Councillor Park.
▶ 2:41 Speaker 3: Yes. Thank you. Um, thank you for, again, for, for your time and, and work, um, on being on this, this board. My question is just a, a straightforward one. What is your biggest challenge right now? Um, in terms of the board? In terms of the board, what, and I guess related, what, what keeps you up at night?
▶ 2:58 Speaker 1: Um, I think it's sort of a little bit of a twofold, um,
▶ 3:02 Speaker 2: thing that we're kind of grappling with the moment is now
▶ 3:04 Speaker 1: that we've kind of gotten our footing
▶ 3:07 Speaker 2: and we've established our parameters, how we wanna operate,
▶ 3:11 Speaker 1: uh, one is having sufficient funding in the, um, actual fund to make, you know, significant grants. Two folks who wanna develop affordable housing. And we all know it's very expensive to build.
▶ 3:20 Speaker 2: There's not a lot of, um, enticement to build an affordable property in Melrose, per se. Um, so I think that's part of having more money that we could potentially grant and entice people to come, you know, a developer. We don't have anyone other than Melrose, affordable Housing Corporation doing any kind
▶ 3:37 Speaker 1: of work like this in the community.
▶ 3:39 Speaker 2: So we would really, we're also trying to figure out, um, how we might attract somebody, let, let the broader community know that we exist and that we have funds available for folks who are looking to develop affordable housing. Um, so I think it's kinda a twofold, right? We're trying to find some more funds so we can actually make some significant, um, dent here, but then also, um, just having more developers that might be interested, um, doing in
▶ 4:04 Speaker 3: that project. Very good. Thank you.
▶ 4:08 Elizabeth Kowal: Councillor Cal, thank you so much, um, for being here and for everything that you do. Um, I just have a, a a question that's a little bit related and, um, sort of, we've been, you know, as we were sort of running and hearing from people where there's a lot of, obviously development going on mm-hmm. B mm-hmm. I mean, you've heard it all too. So how do you define in your world affordable?
▶ 4:26 Speaker 1: So the, um, guidelines, which I don't think there should be posted now on the
▶ 4:31 Speaker 2: websites, we just finally opt, did approve them, so you can find them on the city website. Um, so we have like an eight page document that kind of details how the fund, the trust fund is set up, and we know sort of our goals and strategies.
▶ 4:43 Speaker 1: Um, right now we're defining affordable
▶ 4:45 Speaker 2: as anything 80% a MI and below. Okay. You know, as we maybe continue to grow and can kind of narrow that target into even lower a MI categories, but right now it's 80% or below. Okay.
▶ 4:56 Speaker 4: Yeah. Thank you. Vice Chair Vandenberg.
▶ 4:56 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Uh, thank you so much for being with us. I, I think this is really important work that you and the committee are doing. Um, along those same lines, I, you know, you said that you're exploring how to, how to get more funding. Um, I know that within the past year we had a cap, a free cash request to the council along those lines that unfortunately did not pass. Right. Um, what, maybe not speaking for it, you know, speaking for yourself and not the committee, what would you hope to see, you know, from the council in the next year? Or are there other sources you're looking into? What, you know, can you preview some of that or let us know how we could help you?
▶ 5:36 Speaker 2: I mean, I can't speak for the whole board. Uh, I think we're sort of still trying to figure out what those funding strategies might be. And again, some of that is like loosely de um, defined in our guidelines in terms of our goals. Um, long term, you know, personally, CPA would be wonderful.
▶ 5:53 Speaker 2: Um, I think that the community as a whole would really benefit from that, not just our trust fund. Um, so I think that would be, um, you know, again,
▶ 6:00 Speaker 1: a free cash request down the line would be, um, something we, I'm sure we would probably explore.
▶ 6:05 Speaker 2: Um, I know that some of the money that comes into the trust fund comes from sale of other,
▶ 6:11 Speaker 1: you know, properties in the community, condos, you know,
▶ 6:12 Speaker 2: the percentage of that sale price goes into the fund. So, um, kind of continuing to hopefully get some steady small flow of cash there.
▶ 6:22 Kimberly Vandiver: Wonderful. Um, thank you so much for your work and, uh, I'm, I'm excited that you've signed on to do this again. Thanks. Uh, can I make a motion to recommend you? Can I make that motion? Okay.
▶ 6:35 Ryan Williams: Second. Okay. We have a motion to recommend to the full council by Vice Chair Vandiver, seconded by Councillor Park. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Nobody opposed That motion passes and you don't need to be present at the full council meeting when we vote on this. Thank
▶ 6:51 Speaker 1: You very much. Thanks for your time everyone. Thank very much for coming.
▶ 6:53 Speaker 5: Thank you. Thank you. Okay. That's it for us.
▶ 6:55 Ryan Williams: So I will motion by unanimous consent to adjourn. Seeing no objections. We are adjourned.