An Appropriation from Free Cash (account 01-324001) in the amount of $150,000 to the Affordable Housing Trust (#8270).

Transcript (~24 min @ 2:52:43)

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

▶ 2:52:32 Speaker 8: Councilor Chen. Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor Karamcheti. Yes. Councilor Cal. Yes. Councilor Abrumsky. Yes. Councilor Park. Yes. Councilor Williams. Yes. President Freeman. Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Chair Vandiver.

▶ 2:52:47 Speaker 7: Yes. And Councilor Williams, did you want to say something?

▶ 2:52:48 Ryan Williams: I would like to make a motion to take ID 2026-1170 out of order because we have a member of volunteer who's been sitting here waiting.

▶ 2:52:56 Kimberly Vandiver: 2026-1170. Well, that's the only one that

▶ 2:53:02 Speaker 7: I...

▶ 2:53:05 Speaker 7: Oh, did Lori-

▶ 2:53:07 Ryan Williams: I just made a motion. Nobody seconded my motion.

▶ 2:53:09 Kimberly Vandiver: Second, I'll second. Okay, we have a motion by Councilor Williams, seconded by Councilor Karamcheti, to take ID number 2026-1170- Councilor Freeman has this.

▶ 2:53:17 Bradley Freeman: Yep, just point of clarification on this. We received guidance from legal that we cannot open the budget and then close the budget, but as long as it's only free cash requests, I think we can continue to do that and then just have Ms. Brockas else finish. Okay. Thank you.

▶ 2:53:31 Speaker 7: Okay. Thank you.

▶ 2:53:33 Speaker 8: What are we missing? Is it over? I'm missing the whole second page. We have to take a roll call. We have to read the bottom of that.

▶ 2:53:39 Speaker 7: All right. Let's take a vote, please.

▶ 2:53:42 Speaker 8: Okay. Roll now. Councilor Chen. Yes. Councilor Finocchiaro. Yes. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor Karamcheti. Yes. Councilor Cal. Yes. Councilor Abrumsky. Yes. Councilor Park. Yes. Councilor Williams. Yes. President Freeman. Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Chair Vandiver.

▶ 2:53:57 Speaker 7: Yes. All in favor. She has to get Lori Massa. She's...

▶ 2:54:03 Speaker 8: Okay.

▶ 2:54:05 Speaker 7: It's okay.

▶ 2:54:05 Speaker 8: Oh, sorry. I didn't know that.

▶ 2:54:07 Kimberly Vandiver: You're all good. Okay, so, we voted to bring ID number 2026-1170 before us, and I'll read it in while we get our- Yeah, I hear her coming ... speaker. I think I hear her coming. Okay, so we're going to hear ID number 2026-1170, an appropriation from free cash account number 01-324001 in the amount of $150,000 to the Affordable Housing Trust number 8270.

▶ 2:54:41 Kimberly Vandiver: Thanks. Welcome. Will you introduce yourselves and...

▶ 2:54:46 Speaker 8: Hello, I'm Lori Massa. I'm the Director of the Office of Planning and Community Development. I'm Amy Tierney, and I am the Chair of the Affordable Housing Trust. Thank you. I know it's a very busy night, and I know we were just before you all, our board, a month ago. So I don't want to spend a lot of time, but I want to thank the mayor and Ms. Massa for making the free cash request on our behalf. And I just want to say that $150 investment, it would keep the trust moving forward. We discussed when we were here before that we have a long-term plan, and we need to get more sustainable funding. But this would help us leverage outside funding from state and federal, and honor the commitment that Melrose has already made to its most cost-burdened residents. 150,000 is a small fraction of the city's free cash, um And frankly, I think it's the kind of investment that the community expects from a city that has put affordable housing in its master plan, in its housing production plans, and created a trust in the first place. And I think it's a consistency between those stated values and our budget decisions. And I think that we've shown that the trust is ready to deploy the money. In our presentation, we talked about the $140,000 grant that helped the Affordable Housing Corporation leverage $900,000 acquisitions for three units. And we have guidelines and application process already in place. So I think we can't wait for a perfect solution, and we have a five-year plan that we want to get much more funding, but I feel like we need to start somewhere, and this is the city putting some money into a priority that they have consistently said is a priority for us. Yes. And just to give a little bit more information, other communities that have affordable housing trusts are often supported by municipal appropriations, whether it be CPA money or free cash. So Melrose isn't trying something new here. And specifically in Revere, for the first few years that the trust was established, the city put 10% of their free cash into their trust, and this last year they had to reduce that down to 5%, but it was still $230,000. And Brookline, Medford have received free cash requests, and Chelsea is exploring this option. Also, we have to keep in mind that these funding sources through the trust are often just a way to leverage other state and federal money.

▶ 2:57:48 Speaker 7: And the state

▶ 2:57:50 Speaker 8: has housing as a priority still. In 2024, the state of Massachusetts passed the Historic Affordable Homes Act, authorizing 5.1 billion in spending over five years to support housing production and affordable housing production in particular. And at the federal level, the affordable housing remains strong. I just had a meeting with our NSC consortium for home funds, and that funding is still coming in. And on June 16th, the Senate Finance Committee released its portion of the pending fiscal year 2025 budget reconciliation bill that includes a permanent expansion of the low-income housing tax credit. So these other sources of funding are still kind of active and to help with bringing in affordable units to the region, and then hopefully more specifically in Melrose as we move forward with this current board.

▶ 2:58:52 Speaker 8: And the Affordable Housing Corporation's recent project in West Wyoming is an example that we're able to get home funds, federal funds for that project because the trust was able to give them the $140,000. And then other examples of projects in the area that have used trust funds in Medford, the 703 Fellsway, the trust in Medford gave $100,000 initially, and then again, another $100,000 to move that project forward. In Arlington, there's a 43 affordable unit project that the trust invested 250,000 in pre-development, another 200,000 to close a funding gap, and the total development cost for that project was 32 million. They were able to get 24 million in state and federal subsidies. And another project in Arlington at 85/87 Grafton Street, they acquired a two-family. The trust gave 25,000 and 475,000 of ARPA money, and the total development cost there was 1.3 million. So we're not asking to do anything kind of unusual. This is typical practice in our neighboring communities for trusts.

▶ 3:00:11 Maya Jamaleddine: Thank you. So in queue I have Councilors Jamaleddine, Karamcheti, Kowal, and Williams. Councilor Jamaleddine. Thank you. I was going to just say that this is way overdue. This is part of what we committed for when we established that, and I feel that this is a very small portion to prove our commitment to supporting housing, and I would like to make motion to recommend.

▶ 3:00:44 Speaker 8: Second.

▶ 3:00:45 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. We have a motion to recommend by Councilor Jamaleddine, second by Councilor Williams. On discussion, I have Councilor Karamcheti. Thank you so much for being here and for your leadership on the Affordable Housing Trust.

▶ 3:01:00 Manjula Karamcheti: I see this as such an important opportunity for us to invest in our housing production plan, our overall strategic plan. And for many reasons, but being the Ward 1 city councilor since I started, I think six years ago, housing is probably the thing I spend a majority of my time on. And what I believe this trust can do is help us proactively move forward on projects that help us make Melrose more affordable. And also not beingI

▶ 3:01:49 Manjula Karamcheti: don't know how to say this the right way, so I'm not going to say it. But it gives us the opportunity to be proactive and to be thoughtful, and design projects in a way that we feel like, like I said, make our city affordable. Which every day it seems like it's getting less and less affordable. I know that being a public educator, I wouldn't be living in this town now if I was trying to get in. And I think the gentleman who spoke from the housing authority emphasized that the trust is a workforce opportunity. And I think that's really important because we want the people that serve our community to be able to live in it, and I really think this trust can help make that happen long term, but we need to invest in it now. So I didn't ask you any questions, I just talked. But am I correct in saying that, I guess is my question?

▶ 3:02:43 Speaker 8: I hope so. Yeah, that's our intent. Okay.

▶ 3:02:45 Elizabeth Kowal: That's our mission. Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Kamireddy. Up next I have Councilor Cal. You mentioned something about a trust can be at certain levels before there could be other funding unlocked from the trust. Does the trust have to be at a certain level of funding before other federal funding can get unlocked? Do we have to reach a certain amount in the trust? I can speak to that.

▶ 3:03:10 Speaker 7: Yeah.

▶ 3:03:11 Speaker 8: No. So it's just a matter of affordable housing projects have to cobble together different sources of funding. So, for example, the West Wyoming project that the fund has

▶ 3:03:27 Speaker 7: granted money to, they sought home funds, and

▶ 3:03:29 Speaker 8: the limit of that funding was $300,000. And so, in order to be able to afford moving forward with the purchase of this three family, they needed $140,000 and the trust had that amount

▶ 3:03:47 Speaker 7: of money to give. So there's no

▶ 3:03:52 Speaker 8: kind of magic number. It's just case by case of what they need, what's available from other funding.

▶ 3:03:57 Speaker 7: And

▶ 3:04:00 Speaker 8: things like pre-development are critical for some of these projects.

▶ 3:04:03 Speaker 7: And so it's not an exorbitant amount of money, but

▶ 3:04:08 Speaker 8: something to be able to move forward, and it really is like a case by case of how much each project would be requesting.

▶ 3:04:17 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. So I have Councilor Williams followed by Councilor Chen. Councilor Williams. You're up. I'm good, thanks. Okay. We have Councilor Chen.

▶ 3:04:29 Jason Chen: We need more housing, and that's not just in Melrose. That is a Greater Boston challenge. The scale of it is, we have 2.5 million units of housing in Greater Boston, and economists and experts say we need about 250,000 more units to have supply meet demand, so we can arrest the out-of-control rise in housing prices. So if we were to say that's 10% increase in houses in Melrose, that would be, we've got what? About 12,000 units or 11,800 units, so we need to increase by about 1,100 units of housing. I'm just not sure that the Affordable Housing Trust is the most effective way to do this. Right? We have deeded units. We spent $140,000. We unlocked some funds, and we got three affordable units out of it. So the ways that do move the needle on just increasing housing in general, which will over time make it more affordable, I think, are accessory dwelling units or zoning and allowing a lot of these developments to happen. I know that's not always a popular position. The fund already has $513,000 in it, right? We've seeded it with some money in the past. It has grown over time, and it's funded partially by inclusionary zoning. And so I expect that will continue as we do more developments. So I think the fund should certainly have some money in it to be able to take advantage of these opportunities, be able to get some multiplier effect by other funds. But I don't think it moves the needle overall compared to all the other things that we could be doing. And that's not any reflection of the people that are managing the Affordable Housing Trust. I think just structurally where we are, we're not going to raise $80 million and build large public housing units. That might give us the hundreds of units. But to Councilor Kamireddy's point, I think Melrose is doing a lot, and we've got 15 developments going on now, eight in the Highlands alone, right? So that is the hundreds of units that is moving the needle on, and we're close to our 10% safe harbor. So

▶ 3:06:30 Speaker 8: I want to give you a chance to respond to that. Sure. So, a lot of these things are signals to the

▶ 3:06:36 Speaker 7: market. So, we

▶ 3:06:38 Speaker 8: talk with other trusts, we talk with developers. People are looking at what other people are doing. And so we haven't attracted a nonprofit affordable housing developer to Melrose. That would be awesome. I go to conferences and say, "How can we attract

▶ 3:06:56 Speaker 7: developers to Melrose?" And to do those units,

▶ 3:06:57 Speaker 8: those developments that have larger than the 15% inclusionary in them. And it's things like that, that developers want the signal that we want housing here, we want affordable housing here. And if we don't have the trust functioning and we're not putting money into this, then we're not going to get there. So it is a small amount of money. It's a strategic way, though, because it's very expensive to build housing and to purchase housing. And so it gives us a little bit of a

▶ 3:07:32 Speaker 8: signal and an advantage to say, "Yes, we don't have a lot of money, but we're actively trying to

▶ 3:07:39 Speaker 8: increase the supply of affordable housing." This business is really tough, and it takes a lot of

▶ 3:07:46 Speaker 7: time and

▶ 3:07:49 Speaker 8: funding sources to piece these things together. So, in and of itself, yeah, it's not a lot of money, but it does have implications of the development world and the planning world and the Affordable Housing Trust. Everybody's looking at what everyone's doing and we were sent things from other cities to help with this discussion and-Everyone had already researched the fact that Melrose had $75,000 from free cash in several years ago, and last year was

▶ 3:08:23 Speaker 7: not granted, and that's out there in the public. So, I think that it's

▶ 3:08:30 Speaker 8: a small step forward for this effort. And I totally agree. And I also think it's all of the above.

▶ 3:08:41 Speaker 8: I don't think it's just affordable housing trust, just ADUs, just this. Housing, and we're not going to get there unless we do all of the above.

▶ 3:08:52 Speaker 8: That's how I feel.

▶ 3:08:54 Kimberly Vandiver: Thank you. Are you all set, Councilor Chen? Yes. Okay, so in queue, I have Councilor Williams, followed by Councilor Finocchiaro.

▶ 3:09:01 Ryan Williams: Thank you. I just wanted to reflect on Councilor Chen thinking through the chair. I think that the presentation that you made to us on deed restricted affordable housing hit a sweet spot for me because deed restricted affordable housing for me is like when you put your money where your mouth is, and you say, "We are actually going to do this right." I've worked in affordable housing a very long time ago in my career, and there was cases in Chicago where they would do affordable housing projects that would get bought by people with significant financial means, and then those people would flip them and sell them for market rate. And it's a travesty. So when I saw that you all were doing these and you were looking to do deed restricted stuff, it gave me a lot of confidence that you're moving in the right direction today. As a person who started in Melrose in a two-family condo, about the smallest house you can get, I think that there's a lot of reasons to prioritize even individual units, smaller units for people, and preserve some of this smaller sort of startup housing stock. And as we move forward into zoning around two and three families in the city in the future, I would love to hear more about plans to incorporate some of the trust's activities into the permitting for two and three families and part of the affordable housing context. I'm not smart enough to know what that is. But if you have ideas, I'd love to hear them.

▶ 3:10:35 Ryan Williams: You don't have to answer right now. It's late.

▶ 3:10:39 Kimberly Vandiver: All right, so next up I have Councilor Finocchiaro. Thank you.

▶ 3:10:44 Cal Finocchiaro: Thanks for being here so late. I guess I'm struggling with this a little bit and it's probably because I don't understand the full scope. But to me, and probably to many residents that live here, I don't see Melrose as having a housing problem right now. We have, like Councilor Chen said, we have 15 buildings going up. Pretty sure the 40Bs, many of them are, and 25% of them are affordable. Is that correct? Am I speaking correctly? Yes. Okay. So, I guess, do we have a affordable housing crisis in Melrose?

▶ 3:11:20 Speaker 8: Yes. So the Affordable Housing Trust put together a presentation of- Yep ... with all the data. Mm-hmm. And

▶ 3:11:27 Cal Finocchiaro: so yes, we do. Okay. I guess I'm just struggling with an appropriation for $150,000, which is not a lot in the big grand scheme, but it is a lot when we're dealing with taxpayer money. And so what you're saying is we definitely have an issue with

▶ 3:11:52 Speaker 8: affordable housing in Melrose.

▶ 3:11:54 Cal Finocchiaro: Okay. Even with all the buildings going up.

▶ 3:11:57 Speaker 7: Yes. There's

▶ 3:12:00 Speaker 8: the demand for housing, as Councilor Chen was describing.

▶ 3:12:07 Speaker 8: We need more housing regionally, and every community feels like, "Oh, we're doing enough. We're doing our part." And it's

▶ 3:12:13 Speaker 7: not enough. There

▶ 3:12:19 Speaker 8: was a recent study that MAPC did that we can provide to you with more information about kind of regionally what is happening with

▶ 3:12:28 Speaker 7: building units.

▶ 3:12:31 Speaker 8: So 15% of the units in projects with eight or

▶ 3:12:34 Speaker 7: more residential units need to provide...

▶ 3:12:36 Speaker 8: 15% of those units are affordable.

▶ 3:12:40 Speaker 7: But there's

▶ 3:12:44 Speaker 8: a greater need and the

▶ 3:12:48 Speaker 7: trust is

▶ 3:12:52 Speaker 8: somewhat limited in their funds and so,

▶ 3:12:55 Speaker 8: we do need developers that are going to come in that are going to use these other sources of funding, state and federal funding,

▶ 3:13:00 Speaker 7: to be able to bring more units to Melrose.

▶ 3:13:05 Cal Finocchiaro: I'm just like struggling to, where are we putting more units in Melrose? You're talking about taking a two-family over and creating housing out of a two-family or you're creating more buildings, larger buildings? So- I'm just thinking about land availability as- Right ... at this point.

▶ 3:13:21 Speaker 8: Right. So yeah, another free cash request tonight is for updating our housing production plan. Mm-hmm.

▶ 3:13:25 Speaker 7: So, we've

▶ 3:13:27 Speaker 8: looked at the sites that are prime for redevelopment and many of those are under construction.

▶ 3:13:36 Speaker 8: So again, looking at updating that study to see where other parcels... There are redevelopment potentials that aren't in residential neighborhoods that are still available for additional units. Okay.

▶ 3:13:53 Speaker 7: Thank you.

▶ 3:13:55 Kimberly Vandiver: Do I have other councilors in queue? I don't believe so. Okay. So, before you go for the second time, I'll just offer two comments, questions. Just on the topic of if we have an issue with housing, I think part of the presentation that I found important is about the The percentage of people who are spending very large chunks of their income to manage to stay in their housing. So they're spending a third or a half of their income, like all goes to housing, right? And so then they have housing, but then they also have to take care of taxes and groceries, and there's very little wiggle room once they're spending such a large chunk. So I think that's a piece of it. And then, I believe this amount of money, to the point about it's a small amount of money, how will it move things forward? $150,000 is not going to buy you a house or build you a house. If anyone could do that, they would do that. We would all do that, build a house for $150,000. But I think it is about these things like being able to deed restrict units and leverage funding to get units into a place where that unit gets pulled out of the main system and is affordable for a teacher, for somebody who's not making a huge salary. So I'll limit my comments to that. But I'm supportive. So Councilor Williams for the second time.

▶ 3:15:15 Speaker 8: The motion to approve.

▶ 3:15:16 Speaker 7: Second.

▶ 3:15:17 Speaker 8: I believe there's a motion on the floor already. There was. I sort of did-

▶ 3:15:20 Speaker 7: Oh, was there? You took that way long ago.

▶ 3:15:22 Ryan Williams: Geez, I'm sorry. It was so long ago. I apologize.

▶ 3:15:24 Kimberly Vandiver: Oh, we're just voting. It's okay. It's been a long night. Yeah. Is there anyone else who'd like to discuss? No. Okay, so let's do a roll call vote, please.

▶ 3:15:31 Speaker 8: Councilor Chen. No. Councilor Finocchiaro. No. Councilor Jamaleddine. Yes. Councilor Karamcheti. Yes. Councilor Kowal.

▶ 3:15:43 Speaker 7: No.

▶ 3:15:45 Speaker 8: Councilor Abramsky. Yes. Councilor Park. No. Councilor Williams. Yes. President Freeman. Yes. Councilor Romanul. Yes. Chair Vandiver.

▶ 3:16:00 Speaker 7: Yes.

▶ 3:16:05 Speaker 8: One, two, three. Seven yeses,

▶ 3:16:09 Kimberly Vandiver: four nos. Okay, so that'll be reported back with a motion not recommended. No.

▶ 3:16:14 Speaker 8: No, to recommend. Oh. At committee it would be a-

▶ 3:16:15 Speaker 7: Not... Sorry?

▶ 3:16:16 Ryan Williams: Simple majority passes in committee, and then it could- ... potentially fail council.

▶ 3:16:21 Kimberly Vandiver: Sorry. You're correct. S- wait, what? I'm sorry, yes. This will be reported back to the full council with a positive recommendation.

▶ 3:16:26 Speaker 7: Thank you. Thank you.

▶ 3:16:36 Kimberly Vandiver: Okay. So that item was out of order. We are now heading back to ID number 2026-1251, an appropriation from sewer retained earnings, account 6000-319000 to sewer equipment account 604413-551002 for the down payment on a Vactor truck.