Legal & Legislative Committee — 2020-08-17
Attendance
Christopher Cinella ; Jack Eccles ; Jen Grigoraitis ; Jeff McNaught ; Leila Migliorelli ; John N. Tramontozzi
Agenda
- Call to Order
- Remote Meeting Information
- Public Comment
- Orders
- ORDER-2021-1 : An order to accept Massachusetts General Law c.44, §55C for the purpose of establishing an Affordable Housing Trust Fund in the City of Melrose.
- ORDER-2021-2 : An Order amending Chapter A, Article II of the Administrative Code of the City of Melrose by inserting a new Section A-222 as set forth herein
- Adjournment
Minutes
CITY OF MELROSE LEGAL & LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CALENDAR● AUGUST 17, 2020 Web-based remote meeting Committee Meeting 7:15 PM , Melrose, MA 02176 The public should take notice that the Melrose City Council may, on certain occasions, have a quorum in attendance due to standing committees of the City Council consisting of both voting and non-voting members. Members attending this duly posted meeting are participating and deliberating only in conjunction with the business of the standing committee. Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jeff McNaught Chair Present John N. Tramontozzi Vice Chair Present Christopher Cinella Voting Present Jack Eccles Voting Present Leila Migliorelli Voting Present Jen Grigoraitis President, ex oficio Present
ORDER-2021-1 Accepting Act of Legislature/Local Option An order to accept Massachusetts General Law c.44, §55C for the purpose of establishing an Affordable Housing Trust Fund in the City of Melrose. Recommend Passage City Council
ORDER-2021-2 Amending Revised Ordinances An Order amending Chapter A, Article II of the Administrative Code of the City of Melrose by inserting a new Section A-222 as set forth herein Recommend Passage City Council City of Melrose Page 1 Updated 8/20/2020 9:46 AM
Transcript
▶ 16:06 Jeff McNaught: I've done it myself. The time is 716 PM. This is a meeting of the legal and legislative committee. I am counselor, not the chair of this committee and joining me. our Vice Chair, Tramon Tozzi, and Voting Council Member, Sonnella Eccles, Migliorelli, and President, Ex Officio Grigoraitis. Also with us this evening are our non-voting Member, Councillors Thomas, Jamaleddine, Stewart, and McMaster. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020, order suspending certain provisions of the Open Meeting Law, and the Governor's March 15th, 2020 order imposing strict limitations on the number of people that may gather in one place. This meeting with the Legal and Legislative Committee will be conducted by a remote participation.
▶ 17:11 Jeff McNaught: We will post an audio or video recording, transcript, or other comprehensive record of these proceedings as soon as possible after the meeting on the City of Morrow's website and on MMTV3.org. At this time, I will entertain a motion to open the floor for public comment, public comment. 2nd, I should open the 4th, public comment by culture. Seconded by council. Chairman not yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Council. Yes. President Grigoraitis. And do we have anyone in the queue wishing to speak this evening? I am looking if anyone in the room would like to speak to any of the items on legal legislative agenda. I know you and I had talked about a couple of people want to talk and I believe 1 of them is Jim Tierney.
▶ 18:19 Do I see in here? Let me just yeah, I'm going to make. Unmute Mr. Tierney. Okay, thank you. Mr. Tierney. Good evening. Tan, it sounds like you can hear me as well. We can hear you Mr. Tierney and the floor is yours, sir. Terrific, thank you and thank you all for your service and for your time. I'll be brief. I wanted to speak tonight on this topic of establishing affordable housing trust because I think it's really important that this community and this Council continue to do its part in addressing the affordable housing problem not just in Melrose but in our region I work in the commercial real estate industry I've got a background in public administration as well and so I know full well there's no one solution to the affordable housing
▶ 19:07 problem here in eastern Massachusetts but without one single solution what we really need to do is use all the tools at our disposal and that's why I'm really pleased to see this on the agenda today to create an affordable housing trust uh for our city because it can be a very effective tool to help bring greater affordability to families in melrose and other households in melrose who need it i don't suspect this is particularly controversial uh matter because it'd be hard to spend uh some of the funds that we have without creating this trust but i still wanted to take a couple moments for two main reasons to advocate for its passage out of committee tonight uh one of those is because i think it's uh just really an important continuation
▶ 19:49 of the momentum um that started with the adoption of the affordable housing incentive program of course the payments that are made in lieu of building affordable units and new developments have been collected and while i know that those payments don't amount to enough to uh develop massive uh projects of any sort uh there's still some creative things that other communities have done that Melrose may wish to emulate and even innovate some new things that can help households in Melrose one at a time and make a difference. And secondly, I think it's really important because as I mentioned, this is a regional issue and it's truly important that every community does its part. I'm really pleased to see Melrose continuing to continue momentum with actions
▶ 20:31 like this. Again, every household that can benefit from this makes a difference in our city. So I thank you for your consideration of the proposal tonight uh and for the opportunity to speak and most of all appreciate your continued commitment to address uh affordable housing in our community thank you very much thank you mr tierney and madam clerk i do see the other person who had emailed in in the room yep dana i'm gonna so dana can you hear us they don't have have their virtual hand up but they're they're definitely in the queue can you hear can you hear me now yes that's my sorry my you unmuted me but my headphones were still muted and you'd think we would be past this phase of virtual meetings but we're not so thank you so much for giving me some time I really
▶ 21:25 appreciate it and I will probably echo many of the same comments as the gentleman who preceded me in his comments but my name is Dana Lewenter I I live at twenty one brig street. I am the director of municipal engagement for citizens, housing and planning association, which is a statewide affordable housing advocacy organization. Um, I want to thank you for for both taking this up tonight and for giving me the time to speak and I did send some written comments. So I won't take too much of your time, but I will reiterate several of the things that I pointed out in my email, which is, you know, that. I'm really proud of the efforts that Melrose has made so far, the work that we've been doing here in Melrose to meet the needs of our community, becoming a housing choice community, changing our inclusionary zoning calculations.
▶ 22:15 These are all things that will create more opportunity for people to live here. People who already live here, seniors, families, our local employees, all need housing. and I don't need to tell you all how unaffordable it is to live in Melrose or anywhere else in the region. But more importantly, I think the creation of a trust is such a critical piece of the work that we're doing. One, it was called for in the Melrose Forward Plan back in 2017, so it's an effort that just builds on the vision that this community created to move forward in meeting those needs. And also it's a really flexible tool. It allows us to do so many different things. We have money available, and this just really is a mechanism
▶ 23:01 that allows us to operationalize those goals that we've set out in Melrose Forward and that you all have set out as a council. Some really great ideas that we could do include a buy-down program to help first-time home buyers, some direct rental assistance to keep people in their homes. We could increase affordability in newer developments to make sure that they are accessible to people. And I think all of this is critical because we are a community that wants to be welcoming to people of all ages and incomes and the trust enables us to do that. I have direct experience running a trust in Somerville in a past role and I've worked with municipalities all over the Commonwealth. Over 100 communities already have a trust in Massachusetts
▶ 23:47 and I think that we would be in good company here in Melrose adopting one as well. So I'm just excited to see this move forward allow us to really um set forth the the vision that we that we um planned in the in the melrose forward plan and i'm um happy to see you all taking this up tonight thank you so much for your support of this thank you miss loiter do we have anyone else uh with a virtual hand up wishing to speak in public comment no anybody else you could raise your hand i do not see we have 25 attendees i do not see nope okay public comment second motion to close public comment by councillor sanella uh seconded by council mcglurelli madam clerk will you please call the role chair mcnaught yes
▶ 24:43 Jeff McNaught: yes councillor sanella yes councillor eccles yes council mcglurelli yes president Grigoraitis Yeah, yes. Okay. Now, I believe you may have Adam clerk, some folks from the administration that may want to speak this evening. Is that correct? We do, I'm going to bring in the planning. I put a point of order around the chairman. Can you just read the order? the first order before us tonight is 2021-1 in order to accept Massachusetts general law chapter 44 section 55 C for the purpose of establishing an affordable housing trust fund in the city of Melrose the rules to hear from the appropriate city personnel second motion to spend by vice chair Tramon Matozzi, seconded by Councilor Migliorelli. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll?
▶ 26:04 Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor Cinella? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Okay. Ms. Gaffey, thank you for being here this evening, and the floor is yours. I think you're muted. There we go. That took me a second. Good evening. I'm very pleased to be here to speak regarding these orders this evening. I did want to point out my presentation is a little bit more geared towards 2021-02 and I had expected that Robert VanCampen, City Solicitor VanCampen made the speech specifically to this first or procedural order. So, if he's out there somewhere, there he is. uh and can you hear me yes yes okay um and before i begin i'd like to
▶ 27:11 Paul Brodeur: yield some of my time to mayor broder for a brief introduction on this piece if i could yield some of my time no i'm of course i'm mindful of if it's convention night the celtics are starting their playoff games i very much appreciate um the opportunity to speak uh just briefly this is a an issue that's very important to me it was a big part of of my campaign committing to move forward to establish the trust and get these dollars working for people Melrose quite frankly to the reason we created this in the 1st place to make sure that we can create more opportunities for housing for a more diverse group of people here in the city. the experts that you already heard from, Ms. Lewenter and Ms. Tierney really hit the nail on the head,
▶ 27:59 Paul Brodeur: so I don't think we really need to belabor, but this really is another tool in the toolbox to assist folks. We know we have some other resources that we use to support people in need here in Elrose, but this is really an opportunity to put dollars to work, as Ms. Lewenter said, in any number of ways, being it from purchase of property, maybe closing cost assistance, down payment assistance, whatever the case may be, but to broaden the ways that we can help people. I don't have to tell anyone on this council, as you all have been supportive of this work, and I very much appreciate it, that we're going into a very uncertain time in terms of the housing market. Rates are terrific, but we know what people are going through,
▶ 28:45 Paul Brodeur: and the challenges that they're going to have to either enter or maintain housing in community and again this is this is an important tool that we can offer and it's an important first step to put these dollars in the hands of people that can really use them so i very much appreciate uh your consideration and your hard work on this and with that i will turn it over to the city solicitor thank you uh thank you mayor broder um chairman Member of the committee just very briefly um order 2021-1 is a as denise mentioned is a procedural order requesting that the city council accept chapter 44 section 55c of the general law that is the statute that authorizes municipalities to establish affordable housing trust funds which is our intention this evening
▶ 29:34 John N. Tramontozzi: so this this particular order is procedurally the first threshold we have to cross before we can have a discussion about the uh establishment of an affordable housing trust so we request your favorable action on on this item initially thank you mr solicitor i don't have any questions for the city solicitor to the uh uh vice chair tram and tozy uh uh thank you uh mr chairman uh if there's no further questions uh my thought is that uh and i would make a motion to recommend uh as um the city solicitor suggested this is the procedural matter uh importantly uh it's uh order 2021-2 which i think most uh Member of the administration of the public who are going to speak on a relative to the trust itself so this is just for purposes of accepting the general laws
▶ 30:35 Jeff McNaught: uh and then we move on to the next order uh procedurally in that order to uh to actually um establish the trust fund so uh with that in mind i will make a motion to recommend order 2021-1 um and then we can move on to the other order um next second recommend by vice chair Tramontozzi seconded by councillor sanella adam clark will you please call the role chair mcnaught yes vice chair Tramontozzi yes councillor sanella yes councillor eccles yes councillor Migliorelli yes president Grigoraitis yes moving on to the next order is 2021-2 in order amending chapter a article 2 of the administrative code of the city of melrose by inserting a new section and Ms. Gaffey, can I hear from you on this? I'm happy to take it from here.
▶ 31:48 Denise Gaffey: My name is Denise Gaffey. I'm the Director of Planning and Development. I did prepare some slides. I'm going to attempt to share my screen. Am I happy to do that, Kristen? You should. Here we go. Okay. Privileges. All right. Again, Thank you very much for inviting me to be here to speak about, you know, affordable housing fund proposal. It has been on our radar screen for many, many years. Really, as early as 2004, when it was first mentioned in the visionary zoning regulations back when they were created initially in 2004. So, the particular mechanism was for the financial contributions that would be generated by that tool and a goal of our recent master plan. So, it's something we're really excited to see come to fruition and also it's.
▶ 33:24 Denise Gaffey: Frankly, just considered a best practice. For in in housing planning and. So, we're, we're delighted to have this conversation and I have put together. These slides that pretty much go through some of the mechanics of the trust documents that you've that you are hoping on. So I'm going to just proceed to go through that and. Articulate some of the highlights. So, the, this, the, the proposal in front of you to adopt the established and affordable housing trust fund. Has this particular purpose in it and the purpose of the trust fund is to provide for the creation and preservation of affordable housing. Within the City of Mello to provide greater diversity and racial equity. For the community, and for the benefit of low to moderate income households, in accordance with the provisions of mass general law.
▶ 34:20 Denise Gaffey: Chapter forty four section fifty five. So that is the overarching purpose of the trust. And it is very much modeled on the state statute, the general law of chapter forty four section fifty five. Okay, so just in terms of very quickly a little bit of context. And again, we went ahead and referred to some of these statistics, but 23% of Melrose's 11,300 households are low income. 27% of households are cost burdened, which means that these households are spending more than 30% of their income on housing. And currently, there are only enough feed restricted affordable units in Melrose to provide housing for 36% of low income households. So, so this is just sort of broadly some of the needs. And there's a lot more we can.
▶ 35:27 Denise Gaffey: A lot more research to be done in terms of digging into the statistics here in Melrose, but we all know anyway, anecdotally. and that the housing prices are have been rising in recent years and it makes for difficult affordability issues in general. Just a little bit of background, housing trust funds in Massachusetts are for the most part municipal entities are focusing on creating and preserving affordable housing. Housing trust funds were first developed in the 70s but more actively pursued by communities after the municipal affordable housing trust fund statute again chapter 44 section 65c which was established by the state legislature in the year 2005 and that statute simplified the process for establishing a local housing trust before that time it had involved a home rule
▶ 36:21 Denise Gaffey: petition and it was very cumbersome um and since that statute was created we now have over um we We now have one hundred and ten housing trust in the state and quite a few. This is not it. This is not a unique tool by any means. On this slide, I've just. I pulled out some of the primary powers of the trust, and there are quite a few powers that are. That are provided for in the state statute. There are a total of. 16, I believe, and these are just, these are some of them and I've listed some of them here. Um, and if you're following along with the actual order, this is section C of the order. Which outlines all the authorities and responsibilities of the trust. And I'm not going to read through this whole list. You can read the list.
▶ 37:14 Denise Gaffey: While it's on the screen, but I, I believe for the most part. making funding distributions will end up being the primary power that we know the formal housing trust um ends up taking on because we don't see that there's an opportunity for a lot of funding over in over time so um that's my suspicion is that's the primary way that the funding will be the funds will be used but there are quite a few expansive powers um that are allowed in the trust. And here's just an example of some housing trust initiatives. Providing financial support for construction or affordable homes by private developers. Providing funding to help rehabilitate existing homes to convert units to affordable housing. Increasing affordability and new housing developments. For example,
▶ 38:16 Denise Gaffey: Like Dana mentioned, establishing a down payment assistance program, that is something certainly that the housing trust could decide to do with the funds. Some other examples that we see from other communities and other trusts include developing surplus municipal land for affordable housing or preserving properties that might have expiring affordability restrictions um and finally uh supporting um providing rental assistance for low and moderate income households um so this is this is obviously a really important component here the when we talk about the board of trustees um and the way it has been drafted the mellors affordable housing trust fund has been drafted the we envision five trustees um there could be anywhere between five and nine based on the
▶ 39:16 Denise Gaffey: statute but the the thinking was here that we would have five trustees and that one of them is required to be either the mayor or the management there are no other specific requirements in the statute although you know in terms of best practices trustees should you know it's recommended that trustees have experience in affordable housing development, real estate development, banking, finance, real estate law, those types of those types of backgrounds. The appointments are all made by the mayor and approved by the city council, so before any action takes place with this trust, the board of trustees needs to be established and the city council will of course again be making those making those appointments.
▶ 40:01 Denise Gaffey: um the terms are set at two years and they're scattered and um and another best practice you can certainly choose to the mayor could choose to appoint or designate Member from other boards and municipal entities but that's not not a requirement it's just something other trust boards have done um and i put up this slide because um there are quite a few different ways that the trust um can be funded um this is a pretty exhaustive list of many different types of funding mechanisms um i think we're we're we are we suspect that the funds are for the most part going to come from inclusionary zoning payments because that is the mechanism right now where where the city has accepted funding for the purpose of affordable housing there is in other
▶ 40:56 Denise Gaffey: In other words, there's no plan, there is not an attempt through creation of this fund to try to, at this time, adopt a Community Preservation Act, for example, or even consider any of these other tools. I'm simply mentioning that there are other potential sources of funding for a trust going forward. And communities throughout the Commonwealth have used some of these different sources. Probably with the CPA being the most most common 1. Um, and in terms of affordable zoning and Melrose, I mentioned the affordable housing incentive program that's been in place since 2004. Been extremely successful where we. I work with developers who come in and propose market rate development and make sure that a certain percentage of the market rate projects.
▶ 41:51 Denise Gaffey: Have affordable units and we've created over 120 affordable units through that process. The goal has always the goal originally from 2004, continuing to this day has been to create units. The planning board always prefers. To create units, but there was an understanding when the zoning was adopted in 2004 that there may be some. Instances where an incentive unit that they allow for. May may not be feasible. In other words, are the way our zoning is structured. Is for every affordable housing that's contributed. The developer gets an additional market rate housing unit. And for the smaller projects we found, we have found. That that's not always feasible. It's not possible on a. with a project of eight units to add a nine unit sometimes there's just not space to do that
▶ 42:47 Denise Gaffey: so in those instances the planning board has used its discretion and allowed a developer to contribute um to make a financial contribution to the fund and um it's very rare in fact since since 2004 and over 16 years we've generated um 237 000 which is a which is a lot of money in the aggregate but it has taken a long time to get to that point to generate those kind of funds um in in 2009 a year ago we were in front of the um city council board of alderman at the time and this was after the planning board had spent quite some time um proposing and studying an amendment to our affordable housing program as many of you know that resulted in changing the percentage contribution from 10 to 15 for um for affordable units and also at that time the
▶ 43:45 Denise Gaffey: planning board spent a lot of time thinking about whether they wanted to um eliminate the monetary contribution altogether just again because it didn't really um it was always considered more advantageous to have units as opposed to the funds um but we landed in a place um where we allowed for or require i should say monetary contributions from the really small developments like five to seven units and also we created a new mechanism where if an affordable housing calculation results in a fraction less than one half percent then that difference that that fractional difference becomes a monetary contribution and if the fraction is over one half of a percent it actually um it um reverts to another unit so we bound up but in instances where it's less than half
▶ 44:41 Denise Gaffey: there is now a new mechanism to allow for to require the financial contribution so so as a result we we now have um a mechanism to continue to fund um this the trust fund going forward which was a little bit unclear back in early 2019 whether we would actually continue to allow for that but all that to say it puts even more importance on creating this trust now and so finally these are some next steps once the council establishes the affordable housing trust And then appoints the board of trustees. That would be the next step. But the trustees will also execute a declaration of trust, which will establish their authority and also their rules and regulations. So, many of the items that you saw earlier, all of those different powers that were enumerated in the statute.
▶ 45:42 Denise Gaffey: I suspect that once the trust rolls up their sleeves and starts to really take a close look at what the city's needs are, they'll be narrowing it down that list considerably. And that's what would end up getting included into the declaration of trust. It's obviously very important for trustees to become very familiar around local housing needs for this trust fund to be the most impactful that it can. And so, coincidentally, we actually are also embarking. I'll be talking about this in the appropriations community this evening. But we happen to be embarking on a housing production planning process. Right now as well, which will be a really robust. Planning process around housing production and affordable housing a very deep dive into.
▶ 46:33 Denise Gaffey: The communities, the needs that we see in the community and. what the community sees as a vision going forward. And this is gonna be a really terrific opportunity, I think, for this new board of trustees to use this information, to provide a vision and to shape the goals around the Equitable Housing Trust. So enabling them to create this action plan, which will help focus their efforts over the next one to five years. With that, thank you. That's pretty much it and I'm happy to answer any questions you have. Madam Clerk, there we go. I can see everyone. I haven't seen any hands in the queue for anyone who has any questions for Ms. Gaffey. Councilor Migliorelli. Thank you, Chairman McNaught. Thank you, Ms. Gaffey. The presentation was really helpful and
▶ 47:37 Leila Migliorelli: hopefully made my other counselors give them some background into the importance of creating this trust um i uh president gregoryce and i had put forward the order to accept the statute um based on i think the information you had shared with us the fact that many of us i know heard while campaigning last year the importance of increasing affordability in the city um and now as we're heading you know we're in a pandemic and and do um you know some dire economic situations um we're gonna find that you know people are gonna have a hard time you know reporting here living here staying here um but beyond all of that i think the fact that this was a priority in the master plan and there are already funds set aside that can't be used for any other purpose i think just from
▶ 48:21 Jack Eccles: a fiscal perspective um it makes sense to put these funds into good use so um i you know i will be supporting this order and um i hope my fellow counselors will follow in suit thank you Thank you, Ms. Chairman. I concur with Councillor Migliorelli that this is very important and that there's a lot of staff about, you know, cost per household and any small-stakehold would be good. I do have one question for Ms. Gaffney, which is kind of like talking about the money that we're taking in now expect that $230,000 that's going to transfer in do you expect there to be more money we did us change in the way that's going to be coming in are we going to be collecting more or from different avenues that requires a financial contribution for small projects and also requires contribution for that
▶ 49:34 Denise Gaffey: less than half fractional computation so um we we absolutely will continue to fund it um not not huge dollars it would i don't expect the pace to be any that much more dramatically dramatically different than what we've seen over the last 16 years um but you know it is it is an ongoing funding source and sort of those projects i just just promote those projects pay in perpetuity do they pay when they're developed they kind of have an annual pay-in oh no it's it's the fee is calculated um usually when they're getting uh their certificate of occupancy so um sometimes if it's you know break it out based on the number of units it might be done with closing on each individual unit but usually it's just based on a certificate of occupancy um for for a development
▶ 50:35 Denise Gaffey: awesome and then and then one last question you had said that um we allow people to it is there an option where you say you know you there isn't you can't take advantage of this whenever you have to build the affordable units it's that so yeah so we there used to be a lot more of a gray area there it used to be um before we amended the zoning in 2019 it was um the language was a little bit fuzzier and developers would try to appeal to the planning board to make the contribution as opposed to build the unit they very increasingly you know found a sympathetic ear because we know that the unit it's just so much harder to create the unit with the funds As to getting units, so. So, we no longer have, we have very, we don't really have any discretion anymore. That was 1 of the reasons we met. That was 1 of the.
▶ 51:29 Denise Gaffey: Consequences 1 of our goals with the amendment was to eliminate the discretion. So now, if it's a. If it's a development, that's 5 to 7 units, it has to be a cash contribution. Or if the calculation is less than half. know you might be giving one unit and then some cash but there's no instances where a developer can say oh you know you know if they're building 10 units can we just give you the cash instead for the one unit that's that's not allowed anymore at all there's no discretion there that's good to hear awesome um well thank you i'm i'm supportive of this and i i look forward to its implementation president Grigoraitis thank you chairman mcnaught thank you ms gaffey and i apologize for this cameo appearance that my six-year-old just made um he's very passionate
▶ 52:21 Jen Grigoraitis: about both affordable housing and having his mother put him to bed um i just i am hugely in support of this and think this is the critical next step for us as a community but i was also hoping ms gaffey you could just clarify for all of us that we as a city have not yet met our affordable housing threshold which continues to leave us vulnerable to the to unfriendly 40 b's like we have um experience recently with the swains pond development um so just i just because i see this as another the more ability we have to be strategic and how we think about affordable housing um i think the better for us as a community versus being put in a position where we were we were in where we were trying to kind of fend off a development that we didn't really think was the
▶ 53:06 Denise Gaffey: right fit for this community um sure absolutely and i'm sure i'll be talking a little bit more about this too in the next committee meeting um regarding the housing production plan because that's a really important aspect of the hpp the plan um but you're correct we in belrose we are we have not reached the 10 um affordable housing uh goal that the state has required for all municipalities we are um we're at seven percent i believe um we made a lot of we have made a lot of progress over the years on through many of these different initiatives that we've had but it is it is pretty tricky to get to that 10 percent um and we need as many tools in that toolbox as we can as we can in order to do that so this is you're correct this is another opportunity
▶ 54:01 Mark Garipay: for us um to try to get closer to that to that goal thank you okay uh i'm just making note that i believe we have to gavel into our council meeting in six minutes but i'm gonna call on council Garipay next thank you mr chairman um i'm not sure if this is for ms gaffney or uh or um mr van campen quick question uh ms gaffney you had mentioned that this has been in the works for um a number of years other than the zoning change that you mentioned in 2019 are there any other changes from the original version of the trust that um that are in the one presented for us or is it kind of the original original one that's been in the works for a number of years uh no this is the first initiative um the city has made formally to create the trust
▶ 54:54 Mark Garipay: okay um and one other question uh like other commissions and boards we have i know the uh i know this is an it's independent uh um trust will there be a line item at all in the budget for the uh the board or will it um will everything be funded uh through for the board through the trust i know um when they hire somebody i know in some in some instances in some commissions and boards we have line items uh in the budget for them and i'm wondering if there will be a line item budget for this board whatever it may be i'm not sure of the answer to that okay okay thank you um i just want to say i'm i'm not a voting member of this committee and i um i will be voting in favor of this if it looks like it's going to pass so uh i will be voting in favor of
▶ 55:46 Shawn M. MacMaster: this in the full community thank you did i miss thank you council mcmaster thank you mr chairman i'm a non-voting member of this committee i do support the order but just add some uh operational questions the first uh miss gaffey is uh first thank you for all for being here um and thank you for your presentation miss gaffey the first question relates to the housing needs assessment that is mentioned um as a bullet point in one of your slides uh what is the plan to pay for that needs assessment and what would that really look like okay so um again i'll be getting into this in a little more detail in our in the appropriations community that's coming up right after this because we just received a grant um and um to do a housing production plan and that needs
▶ 56:42 Shawn M. MacMaster: assessment is a huge part of the plan so it's included in that grant funded effort there'll There'll be no cost to this. Okay. And as we all know, developers are limited in terms of really the ability right now to build in the city because of space or scarcity of space. And based on some, some changes that have been made by the console, the planning board, we're limited in terms of our ability now to bring in revenue to the trust fund. So, I'm wondering what really is the plan, if any, to ensure that this is something that becomes sustainable over time. I think that's a great question. I do think it does help that we met when we mentioned the zoning. We did allow. We did allow for ongoing funding, but that, of course, depends on developments occurring.
▶ 57:37 Denise Gaffey: So, which we, by the way, have not seen any let up and I should say, despite the pandemic, there's still a lot of. There's a lot of business, but, um. But you're right, I think I think that's going to be something that the trustees are going to have to wrestle with. And I think they're going to have that will that will feed into their decision about how they. Structure how they actually do create their declaration of trust and how they structure. Your responsibilities, I think they'll have to have that in mind. It looks like there is some discretion where the council can. Perhaps find some opportunities for revenue in terms of sustainability and Mr. then camp and I don't know if you're prepared to answer this, but maybe something to look into is whether or not there are opportunities.
▶ 58:29 Shawn M. MacMaster: Um, with developments that may have to contribute or not may have to contribute, but permitting fees, other fees, I think, and I think I'm already furniture where the city took in about 850,000 dollars. If there, if we have any legal authority to. Require a developer through a city ordinance to perhaps contribute a percentage of any and all permitting fees. So, I'm not sure if that's if you're prepared to answer that, if not, if that's something that you might be able to look into in terms of our ability as a council to find ways through through an ordinance or ordinances. where we may be able to garner additional revenue in light of some of the limitations that we currently have. Yeah, and I think it's certainly something
▶ 59:23 Jeff McNaught: to look into, Councilor, for purposes of today's meeting. I'm sorry, can I pause, everyone? I think we're gonna have to recess for a moment. I'll entertain a moment for recess. We just have to gavel into our council meeting and then we can come right back to this. Motion to recess. Second. Motion to recess by Councilor Eccles, seconded by Councilor Migliorelli. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll? You're on mute. Chair McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Tramontozzi? Yes. Chair Sinella, I mean, sorry, Councilor Sinella? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. Yes. Okay, we're in recess. Take it over, Prez. Thanks, Jeff. All right. Do we have everyone? Do we need the city clerk?
▶ 1:21:54 Shawn M. MacMaster: Mr. mayor miss gaffey I know you're all still waiting. We appreciate it and I'm going to go back and ask both. council mcmaster and um city solicitor van camp and if we need the question repeated or if you are ready to answer just thank you uh mr chairman um just as a refresher mr van camp and the question uh relates to an earlier question that i had asked miss gaffey about uh sustainability and um if you're not prepared to answer this tonight i would just maybe point you to section d of the statute perhaps uh at your um your convenience uh if you'd be able to to review that outside of the chamber again unless you feel comfortable answering it tonight and providing uh the council with your interpretation about that specifically um it says notwithstanding any
▶ 1:22:49 Shawn M. MacMaster: general or special law to the contrary all monies paid to the trust in accordance with any zoning ordinance or by law and so on and so forth um i guess what i would be looking for is what do we mean uh or what does the statute mean or by law would that give this council discretion to enact an ordinance to generate uh revenue for the affordable housing trust yeah so i think it's a uh counselor can you hear me i can't yes okay first of all it's a very thoughtful question and thank you for asking it um we are considering what what other options are available uh within the confines of law to ensure that the trust is viable long into the future and uh the example you used before the break is a fair example um but we are considering any and all ordinance changes
▶ 1:23:45 Shawn M. MacMaster: that may assist in generating additional revenue for this type of a trust um at present counselor there is nothing on the radar uh that i could report to you this evening but it is certainly a discussion that the mayor and miss gaffey and i have had uh over the last several months uh to ensure that you know as the inclusionary zoning and the affordable contribution business may tail off in the future there are other sources of funding to keep this trust strong and viable into the future thank you mr vancouver and mr mayor this one might be more appropriate for you miss Kathy mentioned that she suspects just based on some of the limitations that exist currently to generating new revenue for the trust that that priority area may very well be funding distributions that the trust would look at opportunities to support residents who are facing various issues with respect to housing housing stabilization.
▶ 1:24:47 Paul Brodeur: I think being probably what really comes to mind. With respect to that, understanding that the emergency fund has been used for a similar way, I'm just wondering how we foresee both the trust and the emergency fund interfacing. Well, obviously, the trust itself would be controlled completely by the trustees, and there are so many different ways to support housing, including using that money to leverage acquisition of property like we've seen the affordable housing corporation do and then turn over that property to not turn it over they would maintain ownership and then uh in some cases the melrose housing authority would operate it would actually create a new unit versus some of the other things um that were that were described and i would envision as
▶ 1:25:41 Paul Brodeur: long as it is viable using the emergency fund to do um more short-term or crisis assistance and would hope that the um that the trust would be more toward would be geared more towards um creation of housing and you know in housing opportunities essentially as opposed to crisis management thank you mr mayor and my last question just relates to uh the eventual parameters of the the trust is that something and I'm sorry I miss Kathy if I miss this do the trustees determine the parameters you know under which decisions will be made relative to funding is that or is that a decision that's made by the administration thank you my understanding it is the trustees who make that decision they would codify that in regulations that we create after they have
▶ 1:26:40 Robb Stewart: some time to you know get a handle on the um housing needs in the community thank you all thank you mr mayor for bringing this before us thank you to council of rigoritis the president of rigoritis and council miguel rally for your work on this was there anyone else who had any questions for anyone from the administration and what uh sorry counselor stewart thank you chairman uh it's it's a minor point but it's an accounting uh question um ms gaffey i see that back on February 25th, 2019, you had referenced the fact that once this trust was created, the $237,040 that had been earmarked would then transfer. Over a year has passed. Has this money been held in an interest-bearing account? Good question. I think it has been. I think
▶ 1:27:47 Robb Stewart: It's probably generated a small amount of because if if you have between a half and 1% over. A 16 to 17 month period you're talking 2500 dollars, maybe 2000 dollars and, you know, that's. And if you're funding 300 dollars a month to a house, that's 10 months of funding. So I. I think it would be appropriate to find what the, the true balance was and. Uh, and transfer that that money over if that's indeed the correct way to proceed. I do plan on supporting this. It's a great initiative and I just want to make sure that every dollar is going to count in this as we move forward. So thank you, Ms. Gaffney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Anyone else wish to be heard? What is the Will of the Committee?
▶ 1:28:44 Jen Grigoraitis: Motion to recommend for passage. Second. I'm going to recommend for passage by President Grigoraitis, seconded by Councilor Migliorelli. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Chairman McLaughlin? Yes. Vice Chair Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor? Yes. Councilor Eccles? Yes. Councilor Migliorelli? Yes. President Grigoraitis? Yes. Yes. Includes our business for the evening. Do I have a... President Grigoraitis, I'm sorry. Thank you, Chairman McNaught. We did receive several emails of support in relation to these orders, including from the planning board, which I know I greatly appreciated hearing from, and also Member of the Melrose Affordable Housing Corporation. I'd like to make a motion to add all correspondence related to this order to the record.
▶ 1:29:43 Second. motion to attach all correspondence um regarding the order made by president Grigoraitis really madam clerk can you please call the role chairman mcnaught yes vice chair Tramontozzi yes councillor sanella yes Yes, I might ask if anybody has received anything individually. If you could just send it to people, I can attach it. Thank you. I have a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn by Councilor Eccles, seconded by Councilor Migliorelli. Madam Clerk, can you please call the roll? Chairman McNaught? Yes. Vice Chair Tramontozzi? Yes. Councilor Sanella? yes yes yes yes we are adjourned which way we head next is up to you president Grigoraitis uh thank you i believe we'll next head to chairman snella of appropriations i thank you