ORDER-2021-11 : Authorization to Accept an MAPC Grant and a Community Compact Program Grant and Authorize the Mayor to Execute an Agreement with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council for a Housing Production Plan

Transcript (~16 min @ 1:34:22)

Speakers identified by voice; unnamed voices are numbered within this recording. Auto-caption text — verify against the video.

▶ 1:34:25 Christopher Cinella: Motion to close public comment and comment made by Councilor Thomas, seconded by Councilor not. Clerk, please call the role Jim and.

▶ 1:34:32 Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Yes, yes.

▶ 1:34:47 Speaker 1: Yes, yes. Yes, yes. Yeah, President.

▶ 1:34:58 Christopher Cinella: Yes, 11. Yes. Okay. Great. So we have a 1st order of this evening order 2021 dash 11. Authorization to accept and grant and community compact program grant and authorize the mayor to execute. Metropolitan metropolitan area planning council for a housing production plan. I'll entertain a motion to suspend the rules because I know we have.

▶ 1:35:26 Christopher Cinella: Motion to suspend the rules, which has been the rules made by President greater right? A 2nd, by counselor. Please call the roll.

▶ 1:35:35 Speaker 1: Chair, yes, right? Yes.

▶ 1:35:45 Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

▶ 1:35:51 Speaker 6: Yes, yes, yes.

▶ 1:35:59 Christopher Cinella: Yes, I love it. Yes, I think it's Kathy. You're going to speak on behalf of us.

▶ 1:36:13 Speaker 4: Yes, I'm very happy to do so. I'd also like to encourage you, Kristen, if you could bring from my office and also from me.

▶ 1:36:22 Denise Gaffey: and while you're doing that i'm i'll just um provide a few brief remarks i'm really pleased to be able to um bring this um funding opportunity to the community we have received funding grant funding from the community compact program and um also technical which is being matched with some technical assistance funding from the metropolitan area planning council The total funding allocation is $55,000, which is a tremendous amount of money for us to be able to do a really deep dive into our housing needs and create a housing production plan. This is something that is, again, on our master plan and it's a tool in that it's generally...

▶ 1:37:16 Christopher Cinella: Sorry to interrupt. Please, could the consulate chairman tell us, could you just mute and give some interference? Thank you.

▶ 1:37:25 Denise Gaffey: The housing production plan is another best practice, much like the affordable housing trust that we just spent some time talking about. that a production plan is the best practice in in housing planning in the housing planning realm and it will allow us to address as everyone knows a very important need in the community and in really spend some time digging down into what what that need is specifically in analyzing the data very closely and then also engaging with the community community engagement is a really big part of this process much like our master plan which was a robust robust years-long effort which involved lots of community input the housing production plan is very much like that this is about an eight-month process but we will be engaging with the community in very creative ways with virtual platforms so So the production plan is a critical tool. It's a great tie in with the trust as I just mentioned previously, because it will help the trust once the trustees have been established, it will help them identify and focus on the true goals for the community and not affordable housing. And it also provides safe harbor from unwanted 40Bs. So we had talked about this earlier too, how because Melrose does not yet have 10% of its housing on the subsidized housing inventory, we are vulnerable to 40B developments that takes certain controls away from the community. And so this, having a housing production plan is considered a best practice and also provides us with the safe harbor to avoid an unwanted 40B, if we have an approved 40B housing production plan. And it's also gonna help us because as everyone knows, we don't have a lot of vacant land in Melrose, a lot of land available to develop. So we have to be creative and we'll have to look at some different tools. And this process will help us to do that. It will help us also to test those tools the community and determine what um you know what the community will support so we're really excited to be doing this really excited to be teaming up with the metropolitan area planning council as many of you know we've worked with mapc before on our most recently on our mellows forward master plan effort and we've done some other work with them over the years including our real corridor zoning work and MAPC has vast experience in producing housing production plans. They have an incredible data analytics team and they have a really robust community engagement team as well. So we are really fortunate to be able to work with them again on this initiative. So with that I'm going to introduce John McCartan who is going to be taking the lead with MAPC and also just mention um emma bataglia who's joined us here today too she is a senior planner in the mellows planning office and she's going to be leading this charge um from morrow's in the middle side so really looking forward to getting this off the ground um um assuming this grant is approved this evening we hope to be able to get the leave the contractual arrangements and um convene a committee and start and start work in the way so with that i'll turn it over to john

▶ 1:41:31 Speaker 7: he can introduce himself thank you so much uh denise and uh to everyone on the council for having me tonight um i'm john mccartan i'm a urban planner with the metropolitan area planning council as amy said i'm in the housing division so i'm specifically focused on housing policy and planning um a little bit more about the metropolitan area planning council we are the regional planning agency for the 101 cities and towns in greater boston so we're a quasi-public body governed by the cities and towns themselves and we're also a mission driven body so we look to you know drive smart growth and regional collaboration across the region For housing, this really means we can make growth that fits the smart growth model, sustainable, and doesn't add to things like traffic congestion, issues like that, but also growth that's equitable and really meets the needs of the communities in the region. What this means practically is we're looking to increase housing opportunities for low-income people and middle-income people, increase opportunities for people of color and other protected classes, and really protect communities and people who stay in their homes or in their communities if they choose to do so. This is a really exciting plan for us because of course you have Melrose-Ford, the master plan, and those goals were really highlighted or goals that you set in that plan are really aligned with ours so we're super excited about this um housing production plan uh and the opportunity to pursue it together with the city um a little bit more about housing production plans uh just some some information um they are statutory plans so there's requirements that we have uh set by the department of housing community development and in the general laws uh so we're we have to do things like a housing needs and demand assessment as has been discussed already that's a really in-depth data dive that we do with our data team but it also is um you know ties into our public engagement so we look at both the quantitative needs and then the qualitative needs assessed through our public engagement and we use those to set housing goals then also required where we look at constraints to housing development so that's things like physical constraints but also you know infrastructural uh institutional constraints uh we then look at uh housing development opportunities so that can be um and often is really specific site analyses we can also look at more general areas for infill development and we um are lucky enough in this plan to really pair that with a robust look at uh development typology so what type of housing is you know proper in what location so we hope um that this uh planning process will will not only you know be able to point you in the direction of sites that you should look to but like really give specific um detailed um paths forward for development in addition to that like you know raw production we also look at housing strategies that's policies or regulatory initiatives that the city can take in order to you know meet those housing goals so that's what's required a big part of this is also public engagement so I just want to highlight some of those opportunities we'll be having you know this is obviously the era of COVID we want to be safe in our public engagement and try to limit physical contact so we're hoping to do all of this virtually online there's really two big public engagement pushes one will be in the fall and that's what we're going to ask people about housing you know housing desires their housing needs their housing challenges and we'll use that big push to set those housing And then later on in the process, in the winter, we'll be looking at housing strategies and, you know, potential development opportunities that they can weigh in on and really gauge their interest in. I want to highlight these to you for two reasons. A, because these will be really important places for you as counselors to engage. but also especially in this all virtual setup we are you know relying on all of the community's leaders to get people to these you know online virtual events so will we really hope that you share your opinions in these engagement opportunities but also you know over social media or in your other public events and point people towards our engagement opportunities will specifically be coming to you later in the fall to weigh in on housing challenges and needs. That's another meeting we'll have. I assume over WebEx and then we'll be coming again towards the end to talk again about strategies and really moving towards adoption. If you choose to adopt the plan, and it's, you know, whatever final state it takes. And the planning board chooses to adopt it as well. The plan can will then be submitted to or approval. If the plan is approved, and then the city starts making progress. In developing housing and meeting quantitative housing targets, then the plan can be certified and. As Denise was discussing, you will no longer be vulnerable to 4DV development that isn't voluntary. We also hope that in the planning process, we will set a plan to get you above that 10% threshold in your subsidized housing inventory so that long-term, it's not something that you'll really have to worry about and needs will be more comprehensively addressed. So, that's really my introduction. I'm happy to answer questions or take or take comments.

▶ 1:48:25 Christopher Cinella: Thank you. I didn't see any hands go up, but. The consulates have any questions you want to raise your hand.

▶ 1:48:34 Speaker 7: Seeing none, what is the will of the committee?

▶ 1:48:44 Christopher Cinella: Motion to recommend for passive 2nd, motion to recommend the passage made by council. heckle second about counselor if not any other discussion please call the roll chairman sanella

▶ 1:48:58 Speaker 1: yes vice chair Migliorelli yes councillor Tramontozzi yes councillor mcmaster yes councillor mcnaught yes councillor eccles yes yes councillor stewart yes councillor thomas yes

▶ 1:49:25 Christopher Cinella: yes president Grigoraitis yes living yes great thank you uh to our speakers and thank you

▶ 1:49:31 Speaker 4: denise thank you thank you all right we'll see you again all this soon yeah uh next order uh

▶ 1:49:34 Christopher Cinella: 2021-13 acceptance of a net metering credit agreement between the city of melrose and the ambient for energy and cost savings the agreement authorizes the production of alternative energy on behalf of the city through the state endorsed program