ORDER-2023-50 : Authorization to Accept a Housing Choice Grant in the amount of $75,000 from the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development (EOHED) through the Community One Stop for Growth Program and Authorize the Mayor to Execute a Contract with EOHED; funds to be deposited into Fund 4521

Transcript (~11 min @ 57:33)

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▶ 57:32 Leila Migliorelli: Motion passes and will be got in front of the council at the next full council meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Next up is ordered 2023-50 authorization to accept a housing Choice Grant in the amount of 75,000 from the executive office of housing economic development through the community one stop for growth program and authorize the mayor to execute a contract with EO HED funds to be deposited into fund four five two one. So tonight we have director Gaffey and Ms. Masa here to speak on the order.

▶ 58:07 Denise Gaffey: good evening. Thank you. Well pleased to be here this evening and to ask for your consideration of a grant that we received in the amount of $75,000. This grant is through the housing Choice program at the executive office of Housing and economic development and it will allow us to hire a consultant to help us do some really important zoning work. There's no match required. Um, we essentially would like to use this funding to reorganize our zoning ordinance. Our zoning ordinance was originally codified in 1972. So we've made quite a few zoning changes since then but it tends to be a little bit disorganized. We're kind of layering things over and there's a lot of repetition and we find that it can be hard for users to understand. It's hard for the Building Commissioner to understand it's hard for all of us really to some of it just because of all the way that the zoning has been approached over the years. So this is an attempt this will be an attempt to better organize this sections and make it a lot cleaner and a lot clearer. We are also planning to take a look at the many housing many zoning related zoning amendments that we recommend in the housing production plan. So we see this is a great opportunity to try to implement some of was housing related zoning amendments in order to Increase opportunities for housing and in the community, which is a huge need we've seen prices, of course Skyrocket in recent years. So we have We spent 15 months and doing a as you all know a very extensive community-wide process to adopt the housing production plan and it's important for us that we actually then can take it to the next step and try to implement some of these important measures. So we see opportunities to try to propose deeper affordability for some of the affordable units that are created through zoning and also just consider whether there are some further tweaks that we can make to our zoning ordinance in order to create more opportunities for housing. So this is a this would be Consulting Services the way we have successfully done zoning in the past we have We have obviously a technical support in the planning office. But also we were closely with the zoning subcommittee of the planning board, which is a group of professionals and lawyers Architects engineers and other land use attorneys that will get together and work on zoning. So we we envision having a committee that would working with the zoning subcommittee in order to work with this consultant with the use of these funds in order to develop some zoning amendments zoning is As many of you know is regulated through Mass General law. This is just we would obviously have to then the mayor would have to propose Zoning for the council's consideration. So that would come at a very future date. But obviously we hope as a result of this process that we will be coming to the council in the future with some zoning amendments for your consideration. And then of course, there'll be further opportunities for the public to to weigh in through the public hearing process. So that's that's essentially what we're hoping to accomplish with this. Grant

▶ 1:02:00 Speaker 7: thank you, Ms. Kathy. I start counselor Eccles first.

▶ 1:02:04 Jack Eccles: Thank you madam. Chair. Thank you both for being here. I second the difficulty of the reading readability of the Sony ordinance. You said a very future date. Do you have like a rough timeline of when you do back in front of the council for with the zoning Amendment?

▶ 1:02:17 Denise Gaffey: Well, I think something of this complexity would probably take may take about a year. I mean we have to put together our next our first step after we if we were to receive your approval our first step will be to put in RFP together and put that out on the street so that we can go through the process of selecting land use consultant who's going to fit our needs and then working with the consultant to come up with a time frame but It we think it'll probably take about a year. I would I would anticipate.

▶ 1:02:56 Jack Eccles: the I just wanted because I think they like the 15 month housing production plan to then a year to then a year can be like four years from the kickoff of that to getting in front of the council. So it's worth noting for the next go around I suppose.

▶ 1:03:13 Speaker 5: Thank you.

▶ 1:03:15 Speaker 7: Council Williams Hello.

▶ 1:03:17 Ryan Williams: Counselor Eccles asked a really important question, which is when are we gonna get the zoning changes a year from now? Like are you thinking that you would be sending orders to the council January 2024 or are you thinking like January 2024 the consultant is wrapped up and you're now ready to proceed.

▶ 1:03:37 Denise Gaffey: We would hopefully have something in front of the council. So then

▶ 1:03:44 Ryan Williams: I was looking through the order and I didn't see the the breakdown of the budget near one and year two. Do you have a concept for how much of the spending you're thinking of doing in year

▶ 1:03:55 Denise Gaffey: one versus year two again. I'm I think our I think that we're approaching it is we're going to try to do it in one year. So try to just yeah, so one year for

▶ 1:04:02 Ryan Williams: this grant ends in July. For fiscal year 23. Oh, yeah a

▶ 1:04:08 Denise Gaffey: year from when we start yeah work is what I mean. Yeah, the grand itself is allows for work to proceed through June of 2024. Yeah, it does. It does actually do

▶ 1:04:19 Ryan Williams: that. Yes. I noticed there are progress reports due to. Who could the council be cc'd on these progress reports as you send them off so that we can just follow along with sure what's going on that that would be I think very helpful because it would you know eliminate a bunch of questions back and forth. Where are we on this that kind of sure, of course, we won't be coming before this Council in a year because we'll have had an election. So it's possible we'll be coming for an entirely different council with entirely different people with entirely different perspectives and points of view. And I hope that they are as friendly to housing and Zoning amendments as we are.

▶ 1:05:01 Speaker 7: That's it. Nothing further. Thank you. Okay and counselor McMaster.

▶ 1:05:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: Thank you madam, chair good evening with respect to the housing Zone and Zoning amendments. What would be the functional role of the consultant? So what is the specific ask of the consultant? And what would that look like in

▶ 1:05:16 Denise Gaffey: terms of work tasks? So I think the consultant is going to help us do some of the leg work that's involved in in Developing the actual language. We do a lot of this work on our own. In fact, we in fact I should mention that we we do have another there's only subcommittee has been working over the past year and we have on some housekeeping measures relatively straightforward types of measures that are just again things that we notice require frequent. Our frequently granted the zba frequently Francis variance for certain things. So we wanted to try to clean those up and because we all so have our very busy jobs during the day it's hard for us to spend as much time on the zoning as we as we'd like to so we've actually been working on this amendment for almost a year. So we think with a with Consulting Services, they can help us expedite and do that that heavy lifting of doing a lot of the research and best practices and and then, you know bringing it to the committee and then we will have robust discussions about how best works, you know will best fit.

▶ 1:06:26 Shawn M. MacMaster: roses needs I think it makes sense because that's the only way I think we're gonna get there is to find the dedicated time which involves dedicated staff to do that leg work in terms of quantifying Consulting Services between the reorganizing and making recommendations with respect to the current zoning laws and How they're categorized now and recommendations for new zoning amendments. What would that look like to the best that you can

▶ 1:06:57 Denise Gaffey: yeah, I would term in on it. I would probably I would say about 50/50. I mean there's definitely complexities around our existing zoning the whole section around non-conforming uses is very very confusing and that's one that I think a consultant can really help us make a lot of progress on so that's one piece but and then the housing pieces housing amendments per se those are more than say that's about half and do

▶ 1:07:23 Shawn M. MacMaster: you expect that? You may have to come back before the council asking for additional money. I'm just wondering how far 75,000 will get us.

▶ 1:07:32 Denise Gaffey: Well, we we did base that that number on some correspondence we had with another Community who just recently undergone a similar effort. So we felt pretty comfortable with this number. So right now I would say no, that's not our plan. Thank you

▶ 1:07:49 Speaker 2: for your time. Thank you.

▶ 1:07:53 Jen Grigoraitis: isn't it thank you madam. Chair. I counselor McMaster asked excellent questions, which I was hoping to ask as well just to comment that the 75,000 that seems like a big number, but actually I know with Consultants that can go pretty quickly. But if you feel confident that that's going to get us through. It's great. And I don't have any other questions at this time. I would make a motion to recommend secretary.

▶ 1:08:15 Speaker 7: motion recommend made by President Grigoraitis seconded by counselor Williams on discussion seeing none.

▶ 1:08:27 Speaker 2: Vice chair gemology Yes counselor McMaster. Yes counselor. Sonella. Yes counselor Eccles. Yes counselor garpy. Yes counselor Stewart. Yes cancer crime Shady. Yes. Councilor bremski. Yes counselor Williams. Yes. President Grigoraitis. Yes and chair Migliorelli. Yes, that's you notice Levin. Yes.

▶ 1:08:48 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you. This order will be brought to the full council at the next meeting with recommendation for passage. Thank you very much.