ORDER-2019-30 : Amending Melrose Revised Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 235, Article XI, Section 235-73.1 Affordable Housing Incentive Program
Agenda original PDF
Minutes original PDF
Transcript
▶ 32:39 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: comment made by alderman mortimer seconded by vice chair Boisselle all in favor aye aye all opposed that motion carries public comment is now closed we move now to the orders before us we have one order tonight it is order 2019-30 amending melrose revised zoning ordinance chapter 235 article 11 section 235-73.1 affordable housing incentive program madam chair i make a motion to suspend
▶ 33:07 Peter D. Mortimer: the rules that we may hear from members of the planning board and the planning department second
▶ 33:14 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: that motion to suspend the rules has been made by alderman mortimer seconded by president Lemmerman all in favor opposed thank you the rules that we are now under suspension of
▶ 33:27 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: rules and as the Planning Department comes up I thought I would just make one more procedural note for those of you who are here tonight are watching at home our rules require that all posted minutes begin within one half hour of the time posted so we do have a second hearing before us tonight because that is posted to begin at 830 we will need to start that no later than 9 o'clock so would recess this meeting if we need to we may not but just to let everyone know thank you
▶ 33:57 Denise Gaffey: good evening my name is denise gaffey i'm the director of planning and community development and i'm here with greg samson who is the chairman of the zoning subcommittee the zoning subcommittee is a subcommittee of the planning board we have four members from the planning board who work on separately from planning board meetings to address any zoning challenges or changes that we're interested in making so greg is chair chairperson of that committee and we put together a slide presentation so i thought it would probably be best just to start out by going through the slides you've heard some background here tonight from some of the speakers i am I was sitting at this table back in 2004 when we proposed our initial affordable housing incentive zoning program and many of the planning board members as well who are sitting around the table here tonight were part of that so we it was one of our it was actually our first zoning tool that came out of the master plan process that precedes the most recent Melrose forward master plan and And at that time, we had very few zoning tools at our disposal, and especially around affordable housing. And this was the most important priority for us at the time. So we put a lot of effort and time. We worked very closely with affordable housing advocates, some of whom are in this room tonight. And the program, I can say, has been incredibly effective. And it is true, when we developed it, we tried to be extremely balanced in our approach. We didn't want this to be perceived as a taking, as it's been described tonight, or punitive to developers. We wanted to be able to work cooperatively with developers in trying to attain our goals of creating affordable units. And so we created it in this incentive type of way where we allow for a bonus unit and additional for all the required units. And it's been very effective. It's been a really effective tool, but of course at the 10% rate, since the program itself doesn't necessarily capture every housing unit that's created, it's triggered at five units or more. So we do sort of over time find ourselves slipping a little bit, and it becomes harder and harder to get to the 10% goal. So that's what we attempted to remedy with this process, with the zoning amendment. this was talked about in quite a lot of detail during the mellows forward master plan process again affordable housing is a is a is a you know it's it's i think reese reached crisis proportions in our community and in this region and um it behooves us to to look at the tools that we have to see if we can't do better to try to um to increase affordable housing opportunities for for our residents so i'm going to try to use this device share with me ah there it is okay so
▶ 37:19 Denise Gaffey: first slide um again this is we're going we go back to 2004 when we first created the incentive zoning program the threshold for zoning for the affordable um contribution is five residential units or more and currently and the contribution requirement is ten percent these are some of the the current provisions the goal with the the way the the program works is that the affordable units that ultimately come reach the public through a competitive lottery process the goal is that those units whether they be rental or home ownership are priced in a way so that a household is not paying more than 30% of their income in housing and that's kind of a standard in the industry we did we do allow in our current zoning for the opportunity to provide a monetary contribution in lieu of providing units it is structured in a way that gives the planning board discretion to allow for monetary contribution we have always felt from the very beginning that we're well aware that the monetary contribution is not as valuable as an actual unit it takes a very long time to to create a unit through monetary contributions and so that tool has been used very infrequently the one thing we have found is that on the very small projects between five and seven units um those projects are very it is very difficult with those projects to provide a unit oftentimes there are small sites in in very constrained dense locations so the idea of allowing for a bonus unit just isn't feasible and financially those smaller projects are also um they're a little bit more challenging to to work to make the numbers work so the planning board has traditionally found it compelling to allow for the monetary contribution for those for those small projects um universally actually for the for the six projects that we have since that time that have been in that five to seven unit range they've allowed for the financial contribution so that that is um that sort of feeds in a little bit into how we've you know our thinking and some of the changes that we're making which we'll get into shortly um and the other the and again as the last bullet points out we allow for the density bonus on that additional unit for every unit that is required to be contributed and then there's some as a provision in there around a bonus for parking
▶ 40:10 Denise Gaffey: as well so some of the results the the we have created 55 affordable units through this through this program these are these are units that have been either provided to homeowners through as rentals or homeownership of opportunities through competitive lotteries which are always we always have a tremendous interest in, and we've generated a little over $200,000 in financial contributions from those smaller projects that I talked about. This program has contributed, it is not the only factor, but it has contributed to increasing our subsidized housing inventory from 6.94, which is where it was in 2004, to 8% today. And I know 8% is still a far cry from 10%, but we actually are pretty proud of that because it's very hard to move the needle unless you're doing really big projects or you have a very large affordability component like a 40B project. It's very, very difficult to get to 10%. So through this program and through some of the efforts by the Affordable Housing Corporation and in some other mechanisms we have been part of part of this picture of increasing affordability and increasing our percentage on the subsidized housing inventory and those are pictures of some of the projects that have helped to contribute so master plan the melrose forward plan last year this increasing the supply of housing affordable housing was seen as a high priority in the plan and you've heard tonight some of the speakers talk about some of the statistics from the plan so you have a little bit of a foundation there but we were all aware of the affordable housing crisis I think again a goal is to meet the state's mandate for 10% of the housing units as low moderate income housing and we're at 8% right now we continue to have this goal that we don't want to stifle housing development we have to be very careful when we craft this to balance developers needs to make a profit and with art with our goals and the other thing we attempt to do with this revision is to current clarify some of the current processes and some of the language we make quite a few sort of what I will call housekeeping modifications just to better align our program with the state's regulations and the state's policies around affordable units and the local action program and and there's a lot of jargon out there and there's a lot of jargon in the ordinance as you've seen and we trying to we just trying to clean a lot of that up in fact I'll point out in the in the copy that you received we decided to give you two different copies one that has it all in track changes so you can see how things have moved around but since that has it looks like it's very overwhelming we also submitted a clean copy that you can read but the reason why it looks overwhelming is just because we are making a lot of those housekeeping type of changes okay so one of the I'd say the primary goal here the primary change with this zoning amendment is to increase the required percentage from 10% to 15% and this chart just gives you a very quick breakdown of how that 15% requirement impacts projects developments of different of a different size so you can see that we're talking about the changes we we do increase you know the number of units that are contributed with a project by one or two and obviously it increases is the size and scale of the project increases but this chart gives you a sense of how that what kind of impact we're looking at and I did want to point out that we spent a lot of time thinking about what this percentage should be it was not you know we know again it's a balance we want to be fair we looked at what a lot of other communities were doing most of the communities around us are about that 15% mark so there are there are several communities including including Wakefield to the north that are in the 18 to 20 percent range so you know we're mindful of that we could go we could go higher and I know there's some community interest in that but again we're we thought we would at this juncture if we make a proposal that we felt was fair and reasonable at 15% so
▶ 45:01 Denise Gaffey: some of the other modifications we so we sort of have structured it a little bit differently this time to have this two-tiered approach because because these smaller projects the five and six and seven unit projects consistently you know we find cannot accommodate the extra density of a bonus unit we wanted to make it very clear and it's it's also it's always nice in zoning if you can be very clear so when developers and residents read the zoning they understanding exactly what the impacts going to be so instead of taking out the discretionary piece that's in there right now we make it we just just we recommending that it's very clear if you're if you're a small project five six or seven units you will be allowed to provide the payment in lieu so it's something that's there today and it's at the planning board's discretion and we would eliminate that discretional piece that way discretionary piece conversely anything that's greater than eight units eight or above can no longer take advantage if you will of the of that potential opportunity to contribute a payment because again we don't we know that the payment isn't really getting us where we need to be we need we need the units and for those larger projects it's often much easier for them to contribute the unit and get the bonus unit and make it work into their development so we also make that very clear so again it's so a developer and any property owner knows exactly what what they are allowed to do and not allowed to do we are also proposing for a fractional payout you know get into that in just a second so again just to be clear the eight plus unit projects will no longer have the opportunity for the payment in lieu it
▶ 47:02 Denise Gaffey: be strictly the units so again these are some of the reasons as i just went through keep it in there but make it and make it a buy right option it's more viable for the small developments and it won't stifle those projects planning board has allowed these payments in the past for all the projects of that size and then we do recommend increasing the the payment from two percent to three percent of the sale price or market value to better reflect market conditions the two percent rate is um we have found is is it isn't particularly high and um three percent i think there's a calculation here would um this this would show you the difference if we had done three percent for the six unit projects um that have been approved in the past with a financial contribution or a a payment in lieu these are the increases that you would see so again they're also not overwhelming and I have heard some people recommend that this fee payment is not high enough it should be much higher it should be the difference between what a market rate unit would be and you know if they had or an affordable unit if they had to contribute affordable unit we are trying to be more balanced with our approach to that recognizing that with these small projects we're not allowing them for the we're not providing the opportunity for density or any kind of incentive so this is you know it is a payment that's required so we're trying to be fair we want the projects to be viable we don't also don't want to create perverse infant incentives where developers decide to just do smaller projects because you know as it's been pointed out any housing creation is is helpful when you talk about affordability the more more housing housing you can create even if it's market rate housing is helpful in keeping the band prices you know somewhat competitive so we were very we're very mindful of this when we gave a lot of thought to the percentage and felt like this that was very fair so again for the eight plus unit developments we eliminate the payment in lieu option that was previously at the planning board's discretion we still allow for fraction we still require So if you do the calculation, you're a 16-unit development and you have to or a 12 or 15-unit development and you're contributing 1.8 units, whatever it is, it rounds up to 2 as the number of units you have to contribute as affordable units. units but if the calculation rounds down it rounds if it's a less than five calculation and it rounds down then we're actually recommending that there is a that fractional unit requires a financial contribution so in some cases we would have a hybrid situation where a developer is providing units and also a small financial contribution and we thought this was a fair method of increasing affordable housing contributions and depending on the size of the development and it would also it's helpful to have funding that that does come into the affordable housing trust because that will allow for for affordable housing you know activities and initiatives and and it just seemed
▶ 50:28 Denise Gaffey: SEEMED FAIR SO THIS IS AN EXAMPLE WHICH I CAN WALK THROUGH REAL QUICK SO IF YOU HAVE A 16-UNIT DEVELOPMENT FOR EXAMPLE THE 15% AFFORDABLE HOUSING CONTRIBUTION IS 2.4 UNITS SO ROUNDING DOWN THAT MEANS THAT THE DEVELOPER WOULD CONTRIBUTE TWO units of that 16 unit development as affordable units and then he or she would make a payment for the 0.4 units which would work out to be 0.4 times the difference in profit from the market rate versus the affordable unit so for example if the difference was $100,000 that would require a payment of $40,000
▶ 51:21 Denise Gaffey: and that's how that would work so again to reiterate in this revised program we would eliminate the density bonus in the parking we would eliminate the density bonus in the parking reduction for those small projects the five to seven which would be providing the payment in lieu and because those projects are typically in pretty established neighborhoods we would continue with the density bonus and the parking reduction allowance for the larger projects there is a special permit process for this so that would we are maintaining the special permit permit process we are adding in some language that require it would require developers to provide justification for a parking reduction and this is something the planning board doesn't on an informal basis now but the language that we're proposing kind of makes it clear you know if you're asking for a parking reduction there should be validity to that you're near public transportation you're near municipal parking you might have an opportunity for shared parking with you know that you can demonstrate so there are a lot of different ways that that the board might be convinced that a parking reduction in a in the right location makes some sense and we also clarify the that number of spaces right now the way it's written is the board has the discretion to reduce the parking to not less than 1.5 in the development per unit 1.5 spaces per unit in a development that doesn't acknowledge the fact that there are many there are zoning districts where we allow for one space per unit so we wanted to just change that language to make it consistent with what the Planning Board already is you know dealing with in zoning ordinance it's not to say that all development all developers are going to be able to justify one space per unit and the planning board is going to be like that's great it's you know there's still going to be this review process but it's just clarifying the language to be consistent with zoning as it is today okay these are sort of some of the other
▶ 53:34 Denise Gaffey: sort of housekeeping things we move some definitions around or eliminate we take them out if they don't there's no reason for them to be there and we codify the process that we use right now where the developers are required the developers who are contributing units they are required to work with affordable housing consultants and and do the marketing we we oversee it with them and make to make sure that these units are stay on the local action or they get on to our local on our subsidized housing inventory but it just
▶ 54:20 Denise Gaffey: makes the process much clearer and so we're not changing the income limits we haven't or at least we're not proposing to do that we're not proposing to change the threshold we're not changing the local preference we do have a 70% local preference which is the maximum amount that dhcd will allow us to have and a local preference meaning this is the local preference for the lotteries if if there's if there's an affordable unit component to a project and they they're doing an affordable housing lottery we can require that 70 of those units be set aside for melrose residents people who work in melrose households who have children who go to school in melrose those are are the categories right now that we can set aside for the 70% local preference so we maintain that that's that's a great thing to have in there we we don't make any changes to the to the the target that we're looking at for this program at the 80% of median income and we've we've had plenty we've had a lot of we've had a track record now of doing these affordable housing lotteries and at these rates we have no trouble filling the units there's always a long list of people who are interested in them in summary our goal is to increase the number of affordable units through this program and we think the 15% that's probably the most significant aspect of that which will really help to get us closer to the 10% mandate we maintain the incentive program by providing the bonus unit for each required affordable unit we maintain the 70% local preference as I just mentioned we will have an opportunity if it's approved as it's being presented to you to increase the financial contribution towards the housing trust and all in a way to that provides developers with more clarity and more certainty we established this two-tiered approach which we think is very fair and we clarify the current processes and language in the ordinance to reflect the way it's actually been working when we when we were creating this back in 2004 we we had no we really didn't have any kind of we hadn't done it before so we have found over time that many of those housekeeping changes are long overdue because the state regulations work differently or just the way the program works on the ground is a little bit differently when it comes to actually marketing these affordable units and and holding lotteries so we we try to fix all that I think that's it yeah that's it so happy to answer any of your questions I know it's a I know it's a lot of information we're running out
▶ 57:22 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: time so as I mentioned before we do need to start the next hearing or our next meeting at 9 o'clock to be within the but we do have time now if there are questions from yes president Lemmerman thank you madam chair I believe if I'm
▶ 57:37 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: right through our process that we should ask our presenters to step back for a moment and see if we have further since we are in the public hearing portion of the meeting if we have further public comment following your presentation and And then maybe we can bring them back up for questions from the committees.
▶ 57:50 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: Thank you. And just that's a great clarification. And this would be for any further public comments on the proposed affordable housing ordinance. So thank you. Looks like we do.
▶ 58:07 Speaker 4: I also just heard about this this evening. Please speak into the microphone so we can. My name is Eileen. I live in one of these that you had on the. So I don't think this is the right forum for my question, but it's something that I've been thinking about with these affordable
▶ 58:25 Speaker 4: housing and with the condominium fees and things like that I understand that those never change is that correct so this is a period where we are what you're welcome to provide us with comments but we don't actually do a question and answer right now I thank you sure so um my concern is is that I'm two years from retiring and I am a nurse and I'm just a nurse not that long but I'm concerned that I might not be able to keep my unit because I've been there from the beginning that this building was new and my condo fees are going up high and everyone else is staying the same the affordable housing and now I may leave and I don't really know where I will go and I feel like it's a small population that people don't realize or know about or is there somewhere for us to go do you know what I mean like I've been so that's my I don't think this is the right forum and apologies for being so informal but it is something I do think about and I'm not sure if anyone it's all about
▶ 59:28 Speaker 4: affordable housing well in two years I won't have affordable anything and I've been so just if you thank you thank you for being here if you want to put down your name and it's sure sign in thank you thank you any other member of the
▶ 59:57 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: public wishing to speak about the affordable housing ordinance proposed
▶ 1:00:06 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: president Lemmerman has moved to close the public comment period of the hearing seconded by alderman Mortimer all in favor any opposed okay so the public comment is closed and we could invite the city planner and the subcommittee
▶ 1:00:25 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: chair back up president Lemmerman thank you thank you madam chair thank you very much for this presentation this evening this is very helpful and obviously the result of a lot of work I would first like to just start by making a motion that we attach this presentation to the order in IQ m2
▶ 1:00:43 Kate Lipper-Garabedian: second the motion president Lemmerman has made him has moved that we accept the PowerPoint and put it into our record a seconded by alderman Mortimer all in favor any opposed this will be added to the public record and uploaded
▶ 1:00:59 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: accordingly thank you we did hear a few questions from members of public today during the public comment period that I want to just bring before you to get your your take on a few of these issues you did reference and address somewhat question about whether this could open any legal challenges in terms of the incentive taking away any incentives and you know whether there are any concerns there are you able to address that piece specifically of whether that was discussed for these changes and whether that might open up any concerns that way
▶ 1:01:36 Denise Gaffey: well we we feel like by the way that it's structured because it is very much done in a in a fair way with the incentive and bonus piece that we wouldn't get challenges like that and we haven't gotten any challenges in the 14 years and I think with respect to the smaller five to seven and the removal of
▶ 1:01:59 Speaker 5: the incentive unit from that and generally speaking I don't think the ordinance alone the removal of the incentive unit would by default create a taking issue at all but even if we're in almost every one of those cases that we've seen in the Planning Board has required other discretionary relief and so that the fact that there they have variance requirements or site plan approvals and other needs that are required to be contemplated by the Planning Board or the zoning board appeals that minimizes any potential of
▶ 1:02:39 Denise Gaffey: that question coming up okay and I will also just add one more thing is that we scrutinize a lot of these ordinances and they're they're very there are quite a few that don't provide any incentive they're not structured that way at all they're simply okay you're doing you're building a big building in town you have to provide units and that's it they don't get any bonus they don't get the density bonus and that's not the way we want to do it we wanted to we wanted to bit work kind of more cooperatively or more fairly with developers it's been really effective I think so we don't we haven't gotten any resistance and the
▶ 1:03:15 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: effect of this on projects in the pipeline already so so my based on my
▶ 1:03:21 Denise Gaffey: conversation with the building commissioner on that question and I think building commissioners do vary in their their approaches I my based on he told me I think he's more than fair if a developer has already submitted their building permit application just to get their denial letter and I know there are several in the pipeline that have done that he would consider them having you know been granted be grandfathered with the existing zoning so not to be caught by the changes that are envisioned here does any of this
▶ 1:03:58 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: deal with the condo fees of the units after after the development happens and
▶ 1:04:12 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: after they're sold well the prices have to include the fees okay they have to
▶ 1:04:23 Jennifer L. Lemmerman: include the utilities okay I think I think that's all I have for now thank
▶ 1:04:29 Speaker 3: you thank you Alderman Bewtra thank you I think Alderman Lemmerman asked
▶ 1:04:32 Manisha Bewtra: many of my questions but if you could touch a little bit upon the school enrollment question that was brought up I know the planning department and school department recently did a study of recent development and its impact on
▶ 1:04:50 Denise Gaffey: enrollment we did we looked at all the data that the school department gave us with all the apartments that have been built in the last 10-15 years and the the number of school children that are tied to those apartments is I would say less than 10% what we've what we determined based on analyzing the data bless you is that the the most of the enrollment pressure is coming from turnover in the existing housing stock so it's not coming from it's really not coming from new development most of the new development is they're not the kind of units that families tend to reside in for long so so I in the numbers Denise
▶ 1:05:33 Speaker 5: mentioned actually were for all of the units not yeah across the board all the
▶ 1:05:40 Denise Gaffey: unit the 700 or 800 units that have been created over the last 10 years there were less than 10% of those which I thought was a really remarkably low percentage but not inconsistent with what the studies will bear out about
▶ 1:06:03 Manisha Bewtra: this this type of housing did you consider you know how did you arrive at the 15% and kind of did you consider deeper affordability both whether requiring maybe a higher percentage than 15% or allowing an option for 15% if you provide units at 60% of area median income and 20 if it's 80% or you know did you play with around with different options like that we did to to to some
▶ 1:06:34 Denise Gaffey: extent we did look at a couple of different scenarios around the percentage but we we didn't want to get I think I think the consensus was that we didn't want to get too complex with the ordinance in terms of you know modifying the percentage based on size or based on affordability and all that we were trying we we kind of feel like the ordinance we created in 2004 essentially was really sound so we didn't want to deviate too far from that and felt like this was a pretty straightforward you know looking at all these other communities that are similar or like communities to a Melrose the 15%
▶ 1:07:19 Manisha Bewtra: seemed quite in line well I wanted to applaud you for all the good work that you can the Planning Board and Office of Planning and Community Development put into this I think the changes are very good of course my personal hope is I wish we could go a little further because the need is so great both in terms of deeper affordability as well as perhaps a higher percentage in the uh formula for payment in lieu although i really appreciate the the sort of the the rounding um the way the rounding works and the option for or the requirement for a marginal payment um for for 0.4 or below 0.5 units um i think you know we're at this critical juncture with our city budget and conversations around affordability in our community and i think preserving income diversity is um is very very critical and this is one step in that direction i'm hopeful and supportive of additional efforts you mentioned creation of an affordable housing trust in my experience affordable housing trusts are all the more effective if you have a community preservation act in place so i would love to see us exploring that over the next year or two perhaps and um and thinking about other measures we can take to increase our housing stock diversity thinking about our various zoning districts and getting us not only to our 10 percent of subsidized housing inventory but really thinking about how we can maintain um affordability both in terms of subsidized housing but affordability across the board in terms of unrestricted homes as well thank you so much for all your time and i really i i know you know i've shown this to some folks who work in affordable housing and they were all very complimentary in terms of the straightforwardness um and the effort that went into how this was written so i appreciate that
▶ 1:09:28 Robert A. Boisselle: very much thanks thank you vice chair Passed first of all i'd like to uh thank the planning board and the planning members for their work in this projects and we have another meeting hopefully another 20 minutes i'll continue on uh the area medium income you mentioned started in 2004 in this whole project that you use as a baseline what is that area medium income now what's what's that
▶ 1:09:51 Denise Gaffey: number it's a good question i did pull that pull that out thinking somebody might ask and that's a
▶ 1:09:58 Speaker 5: and that's a standard um it's 80 000 for a family of four right it's 80 for a little over 80 000
▶ 1:10:05 Robert A. Boisselle: for a family of four i had a range in here but that's eighty percent of what number so so eighty
▶ 1:10:10 Denise Gaffey: eighty eighty thousand eighty one thousand is the income for our family of four at eighty percent of the ami so those are the those are the family that's a household that household would be eligible for an affordable housing unit okay so they can't earn is that number generated from
▶ 1:10:30 Denise Gaffey: will say the north shore area rated by hud by the housing department of housing and urban development
▶ 1:10:35 Robert A. Boisselle: okay yeah now in contributions in lieu you said you have about two hundred thousand dollars at
▶ 1:10:44 Denise Gaffey: this point where is that money so it's a very good question um it is being held in a community development account in the office of planning community development because we have never created the trust so the idea is to as soon as this is complete our next effort is to create that trust and then we can shift the funding into it now that account is reviewed every year by the
▶ 1:11:12 Robert A. Boisselle: auditor i assume yeah it is yes okay in that process from 2004 to 2018 i believe is the number that you had you had we have 55 units of affordable housing what's the goal that we're looking for 100 105 200 what's the number that we're looking for beyond 55. well the goal is
▶ 1:11:32 Denise Gaffey: the goal if if we're talking about the goal the state's mandate which is 10 percent what is that number that goal i heard somebody mentioned is about 250 that's what we said in the master plan
▶ 1:11:47 Robert A. Boisselle: that's about right yeah that's right 250. 250. okay now the projects that are developed in on washington street and near the uh orange line area how many units were in how many housing units were established in those buildings that were constructed how many um how many mark just total
▶ 1:12:18 Denise Gaffey: units um just shy of 400 400. how many of those 400 are affordable units 10 40. so it's not quite
▶ 1:12:24 Robert A. Boisselle: 400 it's a little less is there a contribution in lieu of that no no not enough 40 units and this is not project alone there there are several projects
▶ 1:12:35 Robert A. Boisselle: that are there there's there's yeah that includes on the east side of the where
▶ 1:12:41 Denise Gaffey: the old fidelity is no no no no I'm not counting that that's that 40 included in
▶ 1:12:46 Denise Gaffey: the 55 yeah and it's probably it's not really 40 it's probably more like 38 or
▶ 1:12:52 Robert A. Boisselle: 37 so yes it is yeah so those particular projects were the basic major
▶ 1:12:55 Denise Gaffey: contributors those are the big developments we've had right yes those
▶ 1:12:59 Robert A. Boisselle: are the major contributors for this 55 units and I'm not counting any units
▶ 1:13:01 Denise Gaffey: that were a part of Oak Grove Village because Oak Grove Village preceded affordable housing zoning that's in fact we found ourselves kind of on our heels with Oak Grove Village because we didn't have this tool and we had to negotiate with the developer there and we were able to get some units at Ogro Village as affordable units through our negotiations but we didn't have a tool that required it so so they don't count in our I'm not counting them all not 55 that you're seeing they're real units but they're just not on that list because they weren't created through this process and I'm just trying to be
▶ 1:13:38 Robert A. Boisselle: clear all right I noticed in your now with this the presentation be on your website on the website also sure parking reduction you're going to give some easy or you may be more lenient to some of these individuals you your number is 1.5 and is that per bedroom or just per unit per unit per unit yeah so when you eliminate these numbers of 0.5 where does this where do these vehicles go if you're restricting if a particular housing unit is 10 units or 20 units and you multiply that by 1.5 they're going to be required to have what 30 spots so you're going to reduce those 10 spots down to 20 what happens to those other
▶ 1:14:36 Denise Gaffey: attend vehicles where do they park so we're not we're not proposing that here that the Planning Board's going to do that it's simply saying that the Planning Board may reduce they may use their discretion to allow for a parking
▶ 1:14:50 Robert A. Boisselle: reduction more units will be allowed to continue utilizing density bonuses and parking reduction incentives by special permit so you are considering we do
▶ 1:14:58 Denise Gaffey: today we do that they already do that that's the way the program works there's a provision in the ordinance today that through the special permit process that allows for the potential parking reduction to be not less than 1.5 space per unit okay so there's still no parking
▶ 1:15:21 Denise Gaffey: on the streets after a certain hour that's right nope it's just a recognition that a lot of these projects are in very transit rich locations where where are two unit two spaces per unit requirement which is conventional in our zoning is more than is needed well let's put it this way
▶ 1:15:39 Robert A. Boisselle: if you're standing on main street between 7 30 and 9 o'clock in the morning there seems to be a lot of people traveling on vehicles instead of taking public transit and the buses are so slow they're late getting to the stations so i just want to make sure that this restriction doesn't cause more problems in the future that we're going to have to build a central parking lot just to house these extra vehicles that are going to be there right so all right well thank you very much and again thank you for the planning planning board and planning members thank you madam chair Alderman
▶ 1:16:13 Monica C. Medeiros: Medeiros thank you I just wanted to clarify a little bit on some one of the questions that we had so we've had 55 affordable units created since the incentive of the 2004 census program through this program correct that the
▶ 1:16:31 Monica C. Medeiros: existing program do you have any kind of like breakdown on how many of those units were you know bought by single people families and you know whether or
▶ 1:16:46 Denise Gaffey: not there were children yes yeah that was what we were talking about that earlier about how we've analyzed I thought that was just for all of the
▶ 1:16:57 Monica C. Medeiros: units in general that but it included so I guess I'm starting specifically for
▶ 1:17:06 Denise Gaffey: this 55 I don't know the breakdown of all for for all of them I don't know no and they're a mix of one bedrooms in two bedrooms so summer for sale and summer
▶ 1:17:15 Monica C. Medeiros: for rent so it would probably be similar to some kind of percentage that that the other units oh I would think so yes in those they're in those types of buildings in that type of housing probably this would be yeah and the
▶ 1:17:28 Speaker 5: units have to be comparable to the existing houses if it's a mixture of one and two bedrooms it has to be a one or two bedroom unit so in the same ratio
▶ 1:17:39 Monica C. Medeiros: and and I didn't quite get it clearly so the condo fees so if somebody was buying an affordable unit and the condo fees are reduced to reflect that person's
▶ 1:17:59 Denise Gaffey: affordability level or no my understanding is that the price is includes the condo fees I mean I can I can verify that yeah I think that would
▶ 1:18:07 Monica C. Medeiros: be helpful and just to kind of see you know what does that mean you know moving
▶ 1:18:18 Monica C. Medeiros: forward and how do the the property taxes if somebody's buying a condominium the value of that unit is less than the free market value yes so the the real estate taxes would be a little bit less also I believe they reflect the sales
▶ 1:18:35 Monica C. Medeiros: price and and that would moving forward with the assessor's office if there are are affordably designated units they have to stay affordable units even if one owner sells them oh
▶ 1:18:51 Monica C. Medeiros: yeah yeah they're required in perpetuity right so they're always at a little bit of a reduced market value correct that is true and uh just in general i just wanted to kind of make those those clarifications and i think overall i think this is a very good proposal i think it's very fair and
▶ 1:19:13 Monica C. Medeiros: balanced and I think you know it's we do want to get affordable housing is it isn't at a crisis level we want to get there but it it's tough to maintain that balance between making it desirable for especially with the tough financing market making it desirable for a developer to actually create units but stay within what we want to see in Melrose for types of developments and size and scope. So I think not overburdening the developers is the right way to go, and at the same time encouraging and increasing the affordable housing proposal, and I think this is very balanced and you did a good job of that. I share Auburn Boisselle's concerns about parking.
▶ 1:20:05 Speaker 3: I understand that this is more of an administrative piece that in some areas like say the Tremont
▶ 1:20:14 Monica C. Medeiros: Street overlay, we can go down to that zoning calls for just one.
▶ 1:20:18 Denise Gaffey: It allows for one. That's correct. One per unit.
▶ 1:20:22 Monica C. Medeiros: Which is a concern that I had that that's maybe a little bit too low all along. obviously you can't have an ordinance that says you can only give a bonus of
▶ 1:20:35 Denise Gaffey: 1.5 if space exactly and that's what we were trying to we were just picking fixing that inconsistency it doesn't mean the planning board is automatically gonna say to every developer oh sure one space you know they're really gonna and they're gonna also use that the language that we've added about demonstrating you know why a reduced reduction makes sense so and can you just talk a little bit
▶ 1:20:52 Monica C. Medeiros: about um it's mentioned many times here tonight in affordable housing trust about what that would look like if that were in fact in creation you know so when affordable housing trust is another
▶ 1:21:03 Denise Gaffey: tool at a community's disposal it would look like it would be um a group of people like five individuals the including the mayor and then presumably affordable housing advocates who would work together on deciding how to use the funds that are at the disposal and we're in the process of looking at what that you know of putting that together so so looking at exactly how what the priorities will be for this for using funds and the entity itself has to be approved by the Board of Aldermen so we'll be coming your way over the next couple of months that at least that's our hope and so it's just it's another tool and just one last thing I do think
▶ 1:21:47 Monica C. Medeiros: this provides a little bit more consistency I mean it certainly says that you know units of this size will be treated this way and units of this size will be treated this way and it involves less discretion so in terms of any kind of legal challenge the less discretion there is it's usually better right
▶ 1:22:10 Monica C. Medeiros: think you're right everybody's treated more fairly if it's written out Alderman
▶ 1:22:21 John N. Tramontozzi: Tramontozzi Thank You madam chair my questions were somewhat addressed involving the affordable housing trust fund so what this ordinance does not create a affordable housing trust fund and mentions affordable housing trust fund but there's no entity in existence correct so that still has to be done
▶ 1:22:45 John N. Tramontozzi: that would be like a next step okay but fees have been generated from in lieu payments for 14 years I thought yeah yeah so is where so where is that money
▶ 1:22:56 Denise Gaffey: that's very valid question so I have to say for the very for probably the first 10 years or so we had very few funds that were being contributed it's just Again, we our goal is always to create units. We don't we never really wanted the funds We wanted the units and it was really only these smaller projects that the tap that where it became, you know It was more compelling to allow for the financial contribution So so we hadn't had that many that much fund in that much money in that fund for a really long time Which is why it was never with all of our other kind of responsibilities. It was not our priority It's a it's a kind of a complicated process to create this trust and so we just didn't we just hadn't done it so who currently has possession
▶ 1:23:38 John N. Tramontozzi: who's the administrator of those funds so the funds are just sitting in an
▶ 1:23:41 Denise Gaffey: account that was Alderman Boisselle just asked that question it just sits in our
▶ 1:23:47 John N. Tramontozzi: community development account is it part of the operating budget no no so hasn't been touched the funds are there is it part of the planning and development
▶ 1:23:54 Denise Gaffey: budget it's in our it's in one of our accounts but it's not money that we is
▶ 1:23:58 John N. Tramontozzi: is it segregated from other operating funds yes and is it in this you know is it a separate bank account with the particular bank it is in a bank account
▶ 1:24:13 John N. Tramontozzi: a separate account yes so so you have visions that this affordable housing trust fund would be consist of a committee of representatives of the community what would that fund what would the funds be used for so it can be
▶ 1:24:27 Denise Gaffey: be it could be used for to purchase housing to renovate or to purchase to purchase a small you know residential housing sort of you know consistent with the affordable housing corporations approach which is to buy a three family or four family renovate it and then convert those units to affordable units so you know that would be a natural way to you might I mean there's not I mean there's about $237,000 that's not nothing it's just not a lot of money to create housing it's to build you know so other things you could but there are other things you can do with it you could also create a first-time homebuyer program right and help help buyers who are trying to you know get into the Melrose market which is really difficult to try to sort of buy down their you know mortgage a little bit so I think there's a lot of a lot of ways you can use that funding we haven't that's for really for another discussion because we haven't those funds
▶ 1:25:33 Denise Gaffey: would be available and used specifically yes specifically for affordable only for affordable
▶ 1:25:45 Peter D. Mortimer: housing that's right all right thank you alderman mortimer am i lost in q you're not all right i'll make it very quick um hoping we will be able to uh meet the uh time constraint of nine o'clock But as a macro issue, the parking is a concern. A lot of people get the one spot, and then they rent a spot from a homeowner in a remote location, but that gets old. People get tired of it, and then they start clamoring to repeal the ban on overnight parking in Melrose. Or they have no parking, and then they have visitors coming to see them. I definitely think this is something we're going to have to address 90% of the people I speak with do not wish to reveal repeal the ban on overnight parking so I think this is something where we have to step very very carefully we do have great public transportation but you know we're not a car-free zone like a lot of places in Cambridge or Somerville Central Square Davis Square, Harvard Square. People who live in the suburbs still like to think of Melrose as a suburb and it's not at the point of urban living and I think a lot of the sentiment in Melrose is we want to have affordable housing but we want to have also the balance to make sure that Melrose remains with the suburban feel as much as possible. So just as a macro issue I would respectfully suggest that we keep that in mind and all of you keep that in mind in your deliberations as you send this back to us members of the planning board the other thing I would like to say is somebody has the name on that bank book that the 237 dollars is do you know I'm not gonna ask for the name but is there
▶ 1:27:37 Denise Gaffey: a name on that bank book I can't answer that question right now I don't okay I'm
▶ 1:27:40 Peter D. Mortimer: I'm going to speak to Mr. Della Russo, our city chief financial officer and the city auditor offline. But I haven't seen this in the budget, as Alderman Tramontozzi pointed out. And I would respectfully say that in the interest of transparency and best practices, that money should be put into a revolving account. At the very least, like we do with the BV estate, the senior center, Recreation Department because in the interest of transparency and best practices, it's not the best idea to have money just sitting in an account somewhere and who can deposit there, who can withdraw from there, that's not in the interest of best practices. Thank you. That's all I have.
▶ 1:28:28 Speaker 4: Okay. Alderman Search.
▶ 1:28:30 Michael P. Zwirko: Thank you, Madam Chair. In the interest of time, I'll try to be as quick as possible. for your time and the time of the planning uh the planning board subcommittee on this this issue um my understanding is that we'll be reassessed in 2020 on the threshold for affordable housing is
▶ 1:28:51 Denise Gaffey: that correct do you know when we'll be reassessed every year oh yes they they update our list so
▶ 1:28:53 Michael P. Zwirko: it's so um we have one forthcoming this year then yes yeah the the you're talking about the
▶ 1:28:57 Denise Gaffey: subsidized housing inventory where we are so the eight percent is as of um either october
▶ 1:29:04 Michael P. Zwirko: November okay so it's recently yeah so I my question to that is the the units if
▶ 1:29:13 Michael P. Zwirko: you take away since 2004 the large developments that we've had what types of properties or developments generally speaking are the average of the size so when a developer comes into town okra villages are done the jack flats are done the the large projects that have taken lots of housing the developable land we're now looking at subdivision developments that have occurred as well as some townhomes condos so where in the future do we think that most of the projects or even the last two years the projects the sizes have been so we're
▶ 1:29:53 Denise Gaffey: running the gamut where do I think the future I guess my question is is
▶ 1:29:55 Michael P. Zwirko: generally speaking when a development occurs in Melrose because there's very little developable land what type of size are we looking at what are the what the developments that are coming in if you if you break away the very large
▶ 1:30:08 Denise Gaffey: transit oriented you know yes 16 to 25 maybe you know and then small ones yep
▶ 1:30:18 Michael P. Zwirko: the I do support the trust I do think the trust should be established I also in the interim until a trust is established there certainly should be some controls on those funds of course do you feel that the 3% fee that we've or at least has been proposed under this ordinance before us what would be the detriment to raising that you landed on three percent but others that have spoken tonight have stated that maybe it's too low obviously it's going up so that's a move in the right direction but is there any further room for growth or
▶ 1:30:50 Denise Gaffey: why did you land on three so you know I guess one detriment would be that it might as I said earlier create perverse incentives instead of doing a five unit development maybe somebody would just forget the financial contribution if they felt it was too high do something smaller and you know that could be kind of productive right and because we've taken away the sort of the bonus or density kind of aspect of it it just it felt like we didn't want to be overly burdensome and my final question is if you could just could you explain to
▶ 1:31:35 Michael P. Zwirko: folks the benefit or the reason as to why we want to hit that 10% I mean I think I know the answer but I think it'd be helpful we're at 8 we want to get higher we propose to be somewhere in the 15 under these new changes so it just
▶ 1:31:50 Denise Gaffey: explained that 10% threshold so you know I think obviously if we can I think it's important as a community if we can provide opportunities for more affordability it's good it you know it helps to maintain the diversity in the community which I think is really important but I'm gonna shield from potential 40 B projects yeah but yeah the I mean at the end of the day really that's why that's what's one of our biggest concerns I mean if we have less than 10 percent affordable housing then we are always susceptible to a 40b development and um and that's a real concern you know we have some areas in our community that are very difficult to develop but if a developer could come in and just blast the the land away and put you know 150 units then they might be worthwhile for them to do that and as long as we are less than 10 percent we are vulnerable to that and so I think it's really important for us to always be doing what we can to try to further our excuse me madam chair it is
▶ 1:32:58 Scott M. Forbes: nine o'clock unfortunately we've gone beyond the 30 minutes that's required so at this point in time I think we should make a motion to recess this committee meeting in order to pursue the agenda thank you madam sheriff if there's no else I would ask if you'd find an order a motion to remand this order to the
▶ 1:33:20 Peter D. Mortimer: Planning Board to hold it in committee for the appropriations and there's someone and then adjourn oh there was more acute adjourn for now or okay so