Appropriations & Oversight Committee — 2022-03-14

Attendance

Christopher Cinella present · President, ex oficio; Jack Eccles present; Mark Garipay present; Jen Grigoraitis present · Chair; Maya Jamaleddine present; Manjula Karamcheti present; Shawn M. MacMaster present; Leila Migliorelli present · Vice Chair; John Obremski absent; Robb Stewart present; Ryan Williams present

Agenda

1. Call to Order (0:00)
2. Public Comment (0:43)
3. Orders
4. ORDER-2022-78 : Acceptance of the FY22 Firefighter Safety Equipment Grant awarded to the Melrose Fire Department by The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Fire Services, in the amount of $18,901.80. (9:08)
5. ORDER-2022-80 : Request to Approve the Melrose Housing Production Plan (44:52)
6. Information Items
7. INFO-2022-5 : Multiple Member Appointive Body Information (Item # 9615) (15:00)
8. Adjournment (2:07:40)

Minutes

CITY OF MELROSE APPROPRIATIONS & OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CALENDAR● MARCH 14, 2022 Council Chamber, First Floor, Melrose City Hall Committee Meeting 7:00 PM 562 Main Street, Melrose, MA 02176 Attendee Name Title Status Arrived Jen Grigoraitis Chair Present Leila Migliorelli Vice Chair Present Shawn M. MacMaster Present Jack Eccles Present Mark Garipay Present Maya Jamaleddine Present Robb Stewart Present Manjula Karamcheti Present John Obremski Absent Ryan Williams Present Christopher Cinella President, ex oficio Present

ORDER-2022-78 Grant Acceptance of the FY22 Firefighter Safety Equipment Grant awarded to the Melrose Fire Department by The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Fire Services, in the amount of $18,901.80. Ought to Pass Appropriations & Oversight Committee

ORDER-2022-80 Request Request to Approve the Melrose Housing Production Plan Ought to Pass City Council

INFO-2022-5 Appointment Multiple Member Appointive Body Information (Item # 9615) Recommend Place on File City Council City of Melrose Page 1 3/22/2022 11:17 AM

Transcript

▶ 0:00 Jen Grigoraitis: Good evening. It's lovely to be back in person with all of you. Today is Monday, March 14th, 2022, and the time is 7 p.m. This is a meeting of the Appropriations and Oversight Committee. I am Councilor Grigoraitis, the chair. Joining me tonight are Vice Chair Migliorelli and Councilors McMaster, Eccles, Garipay, Jamaleddine, Stewart, Karamcheti, Williams, and President Cinella, ex officio. I just want to note for the record that Councilor Obremski had a work conflict tonight. this provides notice of the quorum for the record in accordance with the open meeting law this meeting is being recorded and broadcast on MMTV as well as live streamed on the MMTV website and will be available for future viewing

▶ 0:43 Jen Grigoraitis: through the city of Melrose's meetings portal at this time I would entertain a motion to open public comment so we have a motion open public comment made by President Sinella seconded by Councillor Eccles all in favor aye the motion carries so public comment is now open this is the portion of our meeting where any member of the public which wishing to speak to any item on our agenda may do so good evening Ms. Katz can you please state your name and address for the record I am Ellen Connolly Connolly my apologies and I live at uh 7 Union Street in Melrose I come before you to speak in support of the proposed housing production plan. This comprehensive plan was put together by a notable group of housing advocates

▶ 1:44 and interested members of our community. It is a well thought out proposal that deserves your support. Thank you to Denise Gaffey and the entire development team for all the work that went in to this proposal and there was substantial work in review. I am a member of the Melrose Affordable Housing Corporation and chairperson of the Melrose Housing Authority. While I have had a long-term professional career in economic development and housing, I speak to you tonight on my personal behalf. Melrose seems to be a wealthy community, but 36% of our population is considered low income. Many residents are seniors living alone. We want to support this population, especially those seniors living on fixed incomes.

▶ 2:45 In fact, about 1,500 residents are seniors living alone. Many are struggling to remain in their homes or living in senior housing. This plan works to support these often long-term residents to stay in Melrose. Melrose Housing Authority assists 550 households, supporting 873 residents through its public housing buildings and its rental assistance programs. For our seniors, there are about 1,000 residents trying to stay in Melrose on their own. At the Housing Authority, we see an acute shortage of units outside of our high-rise buildings at the Steele House and McCarthy House. We also see an acute need for units for non-elder disabled people. These people are often the forgotten neighbors that we don't have enough units of housing

▶ 4:01 to support. This plan also highlighted that we have a substantial rental unit inventory. Almost 4,000 units are renter occupied. Both the Housing Authority and the Affordable Housing Corporation support this rental market. The rental market has extremely low vacancy rates and the costs of renting are rising substantially. This plan seeks to address both of these needs. therefore i urge the city council to vote in favor of this plan thank you for your support and your work thank you for joining us are there any members wishing to speak remotely there are mr mcsweeney can you hear us i am here speaking on behalf of the millrose ed bike committee to endorse the passage of the housing production plan this plan is comprehensive and data rich it serves as a worthy guide for

▶ 5:19 illuminating the many strategies we have before us for creating and protecting affordable units while also diversifying the city's housing stock we urge the council to pass it so that mellows can accelerate its work on the subject which is clearly of great community interest our committee cares about the subject because we believe our city's housing policies directly affect our built environment larger lot sizes more parking lots and greater distances between amenities create less walkable communities we should ensure that our zoning and our policies and guidelines discourage them further walking and biking are simply the most affordable ways to get around melrose in a community where one in three households are housing cost burdened

▶ 6:04 this matters deeply we must provide safe affordable housing for more lower income residents we must ensure they have access to safe and affordable transportation as well in our letter to the council we called attention to two areas of the plan we feel are critical the first is placing the community preservation act on the ballot legislation enabling the cpa was passed in massachusetts over two decades ago melrose is now in the minority of cities and towns which have chosen not to adopt it to date the state's trust fund has paid out over 800 million dollars for amongst other things the creation of affordable housing units almost 10 000 new affordable units have been created with this funding and another 15 000 supported melrose

▶ 6:50 has forgone over 1 million dollars in state matching funds which could have been used for for these purposes. The CPA can be passed so as to fully exempt low income individuals and households, including seniors from having to pay a single cent more in taxes. 50% of the respondents to the housing production plan survey all the CPA a high priority and a clear majority of respondents support its passage. As the plan makes clear, there is simply no better source of consistent funding available to us. encourage the council to put this question before the city's voters the second is proactively closing the gap on two-family and multi-family zoning in 2020 the state legislature passed an economic development package which made several changes to the state's zoning act these changes

▶ 7:40 were designed to make it easier to build new housing and they allow for the city council to pass certain zoning amendments by a simple majority rather than the two-thirds vote historically required the council could pass numerous plan recommendations via simple majority for example allowance of accessory dwelling units allowance of more different types of housing in more areas of the city and a reduction in required off-street parking spaces so as to allow for more housing units on a given lot these changes put special responsibilities on communities like melrose which have access to mbta service so-called mbta communities must meet specific thresholds for multi-family zoning around transit stations we urge the council to work with the

▶ 8:27 Jen Grigoraitis: planning board to update the public on whether or not our current zoning is compliant and if necessary to use the housing production plan as a tool to prioritize any zoning changes necessary to bring us into compliance we thank the council for their time and consideration and our members look forward to continuing to engage with the council and the planning board on these issues of critical importance thank you very much for your time thank you for joining us is there anyone else wishing to speak in public comment okay seeing none i'll entertain a motion to close public comment motion to close public comment second so we have a motion to close public comment made by president snell seconded by vice chairman gliorelli all in favor hi hi

▶ 9:08 Jen Grigoraitis: okay the motion carries moving on to our agenda the first matter before us tonight is order 2022-78 acceptance of the fy 22 firefighter safety equipment grant awarded to the melrose fire department by the commonwealth of massachusetts department of fire services in the amount of eighteen thousand nine hundred and one dollars and eighty cents and i believe chief kalina is here to speak to us just chief before you begin may i have a motion to suspend rule 37b so we can hear from the chief so moved so we have a motion to suspend rule 37b made by councillor mcmaster seconded by president sanella all in favor aye aye the motion carries welcome chief the floor is yours everybody good to see everybody um yeah i come before you um with the

▶ 9:55 hope of the acceptance of this grant uh it's in the amount of eighteen thousand nine hundred and one dollars and eighty cents we're going to use these funds to purchase three portable radios for the fire apparatus but for those of you that don't know what a portable radio is it's the radio that we wear on the harness it's the lifeline of communication between the firefighter and the dispatch and the incident commander our current radios are falling apart old yeah they were 2004 but we purchased them in 2009 motorola does not support any of the repairs of these radios as they break sometimes it's just a knob or collar mic but so our pool of portables is dwindling down so this is a much needed three radios however we're trying to also ascertain funding for

▶ 11:01 to replace the whole fleet of the radios which is quite expensive you see what three of them cost and so with that I would hope that you support this this grant Thank You Chief President Sinella followed by Councillor Stewart Thank You Madam Chair welcome chief thanks for coming I just quick question we you mentioned we're gonna be upgrading the fleet eventually of all the radios we on analog still or these are uh they're not digital they're not they're um uhf i'm not a radio google uh kevin walsh is that guy but uh he programs our radios for us and uh um would they be capable of like would they get digital i believe uh yes i believe that asking for a constituent that has a scanner what's that asking for a constituent that has a scanner i believe there's a component

▶ 11:58 in the programming of the radio obviously it costs a little bit more for that module to do that but they i believe they can be uh adapted to go to digital down the road okay but our main radio system is not digital so we're not looking for that and it would have to be both police and fire right because you also uh police i believe we can't i mean that fire i believe we can program the police into them i mean under after 9 11 that was the uh the presidential order was to get the interoperability between all the agencies whether it's police fire ems dpw and also when you have a large scale incident we can all communicate thank you counselor stewart thank you madam chair thanks chief for being here tonight uh just one one quick question is this

▶ 12:50 grant require any matching funds or will this fully compensate for the expense that's being incurred that's a great question no this is no matching funds from the city this is just an outright $19,000 that's good to hear great thanks chief thank you manager thank you any counselor Jamal Dean Thank You chairman thank you for being with us tonight um how many radio does the city have Portables? Yes. So we have one portable for each riding position and a couple of spares. So the riding positions are four, six, 10, 12, 13 riding positions. Each apparatus has a spare one in case one breaks. And then we have six portable spare radios if we were going to put a second ambulance and service they could get grab some spare radios and um and we're only replacing three

▶ 13:51 this is only the three my goal is to put these in the officers positions because they do the most radio communication however every radio is important it is the lifeline if a firefighter were to get trapped that's how they're going to signal their mayday off their radio and are the other radios the same status as the one that we are replacing yeah they still work but again when they break if a knob breaks um or if something goes wrong in the the um the wiring the motherboard of the radio itself uh we ship them to motorola they can't they can't fix them and they don't even they don't even want you to ship them anymore because they stopped december of 20. so we are you know like predicting that we're gonna have to down the road replace all of them yes

▶ 14:42 Jen Grigoraitis: yeah like i said we're looking to uh secure funding um to replace our radios okay well thank you so much thank you councillor Garipay thank you madam chair at this time i'll make a motion to recommend for passage order 2022-78 second second so we have a motion made by councillor Garipay seconded by councillor stewart to recommend for passage all in favor okay and that passes thank you chief for being here this will go to the full council next week in the interest of hopefully brevity i would entertain a motion to take order info 2022-5 out of order so that we have more time for the housing production plan motion to take info 2022-5 out of order second so motion to take order info 2022-5 out of order

▶ 15:36 Jen Grigoraitis: made by vice chair migliorelli seconded by councillor eccles all in favor all right okay that so now that order is before us and i'll just read it info 2022-5 multiple member appointive body information item number 9615 and i believe margot fleishman from the administration is here to speak with us good evening madam chair good evening i'm just going to turn it quickly over to chair Migliorelli is one of the vice chair Migliorelli is one of the co-sponsors of the order thank you madam chairwoman thank you um for being here miss fleishman um i wanted to just take an opportunity to also thank the clerk city clerk and clerk of committees um for their research and pulling together the information for this order tonight um i would say it's pretty eye-opening

▶ 16:20 Leila Migliorelli: to see the results um there are 56 people serving expired terms um one-third of all the boards and commissions have um ex chairs who are serving expired terms um and they're 18 vacancies um so i i feel like it's you know i wasn't expecting to see this in in the report um i think the goal was to create um have this roll into um a website that people could find could find out um if they want to get involved if they want to volunteer on boards and commissions um that they could go and see that there but it seems like we've uncovered another issue in terms of people serving beyond their time some people who have been appointed by prior administrations who are still serving and these are people who are dedicated volunteers who make a lot of our financial and regulatory

▶ 17:10 Leila Migliorelli: decisions throughout the city i think many people often come to the council or to the mayor's office looking for information on um you know traffic decisions uh we have you know planning board decisions and things like that that are are made solely at the discretion of those boards and commissions so i think we need to be um transparent in in who are in the membership um and given that the city council approves both appointments and reappointments to these boards and commissions i think it's um on on our on us too as well to to be there uh to make sure that that this is being managed properly. And I know that the clerk of committees had done some research. There's other cities who are doing this well,

▶ 17:52 who have websites that enable people to search for boards and commissions positions and look at vacancies, find out what type of boards and commissions they are and what their purpose is. So it's something I'm hoping that the city of Melrose can kind of move towards. Thank you, Ms. Fleischman. Well, thank you for the opportunity to come before you to speak to this. As you know, I've been in this position for about nine months and certainly the status of our board and commissions has been one of concern. And I have really very appreciative to the clerk of committees, Andrew Gabriel, for having helped put together a comprehensive document where we can really see it is an ungainly amount of information and it does require time to go

▶ 18:37 and research the terms of all of the members. And then from our point of view, from the administration point of view to go through committee, board and commission by court board and commission to address the terms. And as you've seen, we've started to send down and we'll continue to send down in as quick as possible a timeframe, the reappointments and appointments to the boards and commissions. As you know, the members whose terms have expired continue to be allowed to hold over until there is a reappointment or appointment of a new person. And in some cases, this question of ascertaining the interest on the part of the individual whose term has expired as to whether or not they wish to continue serving.

▶ 19:24 And then of course, recruiting new volunteers to fill the vacancies. In terms of making that information more transparent to the Melrose community, you may be aware that the city is in the process of upgrading our website of redesigning the look and feel of our website. And it's a high priority of our administration to ensure that the information about the boards and commissions is much easier to find. We intend to take a couple of steps. One, if you go to the individual board or commission, at this point, it's a very sort of haphazard mix of sometimes you can see the list of appointees and the list of vacancies, and sometimes you can't. So we will make that consistent. There's also a page on the mayor's area of the website

▶ 20:09 where you can see volunteer opportunities. We are gonna make sure that that includes the lists of vacancies, which it does not currently, and also promote that and make it an easier to find through creating a get involved button on the homepage and allowing people to see what the opportunities are to serve. That process is ongoing. We're about maybe a quarter to a third of the way through of the website redesign. when the new website launches it's certainly our intention to make that information much easier for people to find are there questions from counselors counselor eccles thank you madam chair thank you miss fleishman for being here is there any cause for concern about decisions um of impact that have been made with boards where a majority of people have their term expired or is

▶ 21:01 it a law that no so i i've checked with the city solicitor and it's based on case law that there's a holdover provision that allows those individuals to continue to serve until they are either reappointed or they have been replaced so i don't believe that there's any jeopardy for any of the decisions that have been taken by any of the boards or commissions relative to the information i received from the city solicitor thank you councillor williams if you had to say a rough timeline for completion of this new website ballpark it um six months a year five years oh no no no so this is just it's a it's a refresh of our existing website we have completed the sort of look and feel phase where it was with a designer we're moving into the implementation phase where

▶ 21:50 it would be someone who'd be helping us ascertain the relevancy of the information and the ease of navigation of the website i'm going to say weeks to months before the relaunch depending upon how long it takes takes them on the on the civic plus side to complete the process for us thank you counselor mcmaster and then president sanella thank you madam chair good evening thank you for being here will all members of multiple member bodies where terms have expired be given first preference to continue serving in those respective capacities if they choose to continue serving i can't speak for all members of all bodies i think that we're going board and commission by board and commission to ascertain whether or not people are interested in serving and then

▶ 22:34 Christopher Cinella: certainly um the mayor will make his decisions about who whom to appoint so the first step is just identifying if the if the interest to correct thank you thank you president sneller um he kind of answered that but i guess so the website is underway but we've had a few reappointments already without a website so i guess with this many folks that are expired can't call just be made i mean is that is it a matter do you want to still serve yes i mean and granted you know many of these folks you know they've been around for a while a lot of them i've seen you know joan cassidy for one i mean she's involved in everything and she's given up time going back before i was even born and that's what i think melrose is blessed from the standpoint we have so many

▶ 23:21 Christopher Cinella: people that want to volunteer and be a part of these different organizations but i guess it's a fine line between respecting someone like a joan cassidy and also a new resident moving in who wants to be involved so i guess what's the process been so far that we've seen some reappointments sure so just to clarify the website is our one of the means that we have at our disposal to advertise the vacancies we do not currently have a means of collecting the volunteer information easily from the website and i know that clerk of committees is looking for more streamlined ways to allow people to align to apply upload resumes and to collect the information in an easier to manage format so in terms of publicizing we will use the the website press

▶ 24:12 releases the city news other means to get the word out of vacancies but honestly the the information that that mr gobriel provided to us in terms of the specificity of the terms that have expired is really helping us because then we can contact those individuals whose terms have expired and and sometimes there is a little bit of a research project to find their correct email or phone numbers because again it's a data management problem problem we don't always have those things at our fingertips but we are going through and and calling or emailing or contacting those people um in in advance of the the new website being uh the new design of the website that sort of one doesn't have anything to do with the other thank you councillor Garipay um

▶ 25:02 Mark Garipay: just a council of mcmaster's point not really a question kind of just a comment i know we don't control who the mayor is going to appoint we approve them but i would like to think that if we have a member on one of these boards and i was shocked we got some from 2010 that have been serving in the community well and they still want to serve that they would be uh recommended for reappointment um they've been they've been doing their they've been serving the community even without the reappointment and if they want to serve i would like to think that we would we would honor that uh honor that request um so that's just more of a statement thank you anyone else for the first time counselor williams uh thank you for and then vice chairman thanks for

▶ 25:52 Ryan Williams: giving me the second go around um i just wanted to to build off a little bit of what some of my my colleagues said um and maybe speak to um speak to some thoughts i had on the other side of that equation if we have somebody who's been serving the city for a very long time in a certain capacity i think certainly it's important that we think about the term of their service we think about the contributions they've made and we think about their values and the priorities that they've set but these are bodies that have a lot of technical control over the city of melrose planning board the zoning board they decide how the city appears how it functions block by block what buildings get built and what buildings don't get built so i would i would encourage the mayor

▶ 26:38 Ryan Williams: to review all appointments through the lens of where melrose is today well where melrose is going tomorrow i'm certainly we're sitting here talking about the housing production plan and maybe 80 percent of these actions are dependent on the planning board to pass them so i wouldn't think that we would just look at a person who's been serving on a council for a very long time and use that as a as a reason to to reappoint without discussion i would want to see that we we have a thorough discussion about all of the possible candidates and we can decide what serves the best interests of the city at large. For the first time, Councilor Cromchady. Thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate the collection of this information

▶ 27:23 Manjula Karamcheti: and to really get a better sense of what all the boards and commissions are and who are seated on them and understand how long people have been on the boards and commissions. The question I have, and as a newer counselor, I'm curious, is there any process for evaluating the goals and effectiveness of the boards and commissions in relation to like who is serving and what is happening and how the boards and commissions are contributing to the city? Just wanna get a better understanding of how we determine if the boards and commissions are serving our city in the ways that we hope they would. Well, in my limited tenure here, I can't say that I'm aware of a systematic way that that is done. I do know that for many of our most important boards, they are staffed by city staff members,

▶ 28:18 such as the Planning Board, Zoning Board of Appeals. And we have much greater insight into how those boards are functioning. And obviously, you can see their work plan moving forward through the permits that are granted or the you know the the ordinances that are are proposed uh relative to you know as we say our built environment i think it probably varies from board and commission to board and commission and certainly would take that into consideration in terms of our information gathering in the future about ascertaining how things are going for boards and commissions because certainly people are volunteering their time to benefit the community and we want to make sure that their time is well spent and their boards and commissions are effective absolutely

▶ 29:00 Manjula Karamcheti: and just a follow-up question to that in terms of who is on these committees is there anything like in terms of composition of the boards representing different ideas parts of the community like having are there like youth in different populations represented is there like a template or an interest in that do we look for a diverse representation in our boards and committees do we look for youth voice do we like what goes into that part of the process you know in some cases you're looking for people with certain skills backgrounds uh experience certainly from the point of view of recruiting new volunteers it's it's a it's a challenge especially to bring in people of different stages in their lives because it is um you know hard to

▶ 29:51 make time to to volunteer for example if you're a you know working parent something like that there's some some facts on the ground that are are hard to uh to to sometimes mitigate but we certainly have an interest in and reaching a more diverse group of potential volunteers and inviting them into city government understanding that not everyone at every stage of life is is really able to donate as much time to to the work of city government as you might perhaps if you're volunteered or you know a student if you're if you're retired for example um there is no magic formula uh in in terms of composition of the board we're looking for good quality people with skills that they're willing and able to donate toward to the city great thank you so much i appreciate that

▶ 30:42 Leila Migliorelli: vice chairman gliorelli thank you um just a few follow-up questions so who would you say is ultimately responsible for managing the boards and commissions the process to recruit members I mean is that something you see within the mayor's purview yes it certainly is I mean I think it's a collaborative process between the mayor's office the city clerk the clerk of committees to make sure that we have the most accurate information about the terms and then who is constituting each board the Commission but ultimately any board or commission that's appointed by the mayor that process will be managed in the mayor's office to make sure that as we see those terms expiring that we are doing the outreach to the

▶ 31:25 individuals ascertaining if they wish to be appointed or recruiting new people and I don't think that necessarily will have a hundred percent of every vacancy filled on every board or commission it's just not probably feasible because people have to step off for one reason or another but it's certainly a goal of mine to ensure that going forward that the mayor's office is able to stay ahead of that in a more meaningful way so we don't wind up in the situation again right because i'm assuming then prior to the clerk of committees pulling together this information you are not operating off of any central system that told you who was up for reappointment or we had we had some spreadsheets with incomplete information and

▶ 32:07 And so that made it just all the harder to move forward in a sort of concerted sort of way without having it all sort of verified. There were lots of terms and information missing from the information that I had when I first started here. And then just one thing or another intervened with us moving forward. And until we had the verification of the terms, we were not necessarily cognizant of all of the boards permissions that were we're really needing more attention I would argue that's a really important role I'm just given all we've been talking about in terms of the role that these positions play within the city is to just make sure that we stay on top of that moving forward there's just a few other pieces

▶ 32:51 Leila Migliorelli: within the code that I kind of wanted to address so the code says that all public note that all public notice shall be given for all vacancies is that happening so let's say I mean up until now or the last nine months that you've in the position are you um or is the mayor's office providing public no notices when um positions or openings or when you're actively recruiting for um a board of commission so i would say that the opportunity volunteer opportunities uh web page on the mayor's office would be the place where that information could be made public it has not to my knowledge been being made public it was more an ad hoc sort of thing as we as we had people for example people resign from and a and a vacancy occur then there might be an attempt to um to publicize that

▶ 33:38 Leila Migliorelli: but not in a concerted where you could go and see all the vacancies on an ongoing basis okay the other piece and um counselor karen chidi touched on this is that um in the code it references that the boards and commissions will provide annual reports to the city council in the fall of every year we haven't been receiving that i know that city clerk had done a training for chairs and started to address some of that but since you know I've been on the council I don't know if Councillor McMaster can speak to what happened previously we haven't received any annual report so then there is no that's part of the code and something it seems like would offer a check and balance to these boards and commissions the other piece of the code that mentions is that

▶ 34:21 Leila Migliorelli: we should be having representatives working with each of the chairs of all of all the boards and commissions that's not happening either and there's some pretty detailed information about what that type of relationship should be looking like so I would just advise that in moving forward that we try to set up some systems that would account for this because because it's law it's in our code and we should be doing it but it also provides that check and balance and just one last thing on reappointments I I think that I know we had at the last meeting a slew of reappointments for one of the boards and I personally would feel uncomfortable just authorizing reappointments moving forward is particularly when there's a gap of let's say over six months that the person

▶ 35:04 Leila Migliorelli: hasn't been appointed it's I feel like any of reappointments that need to be made for people who have not who have exceeded that period of time we should be treating them as appointments that that would be my recommendation because essentially then what we've been doing is sort of rubber rubber stamping people come in front of us by not reviewing they're not appearing the the um candidates are not appearing um there's no one from the administration or no one who none of the staff people who are uh the point people for the commissions are appearing and we're just sort of looking at the reappointments and saying again you know yes yes yes and i believe that was a practice before as well so i feel like that's part of the reason why we've maybe have gotten into this issue is

▶ 35:46 Jack Eccles: that there is not a rigorous review of appointees for boards and commissions and i think it's it's something that we should consider moving forward anyone else councillor Eccles Thank You manager one of my questions was about the reports that councillor Migliorelli asked and you know I'll just say I'd be willing if there's case to be made that there's some sort of oversight redundancy to remove or change the code in any way but it does seem a little weird right now that there's an inconsistency between the code and in practice so I think we either need to resolve that or change the code my other question is is who is responsible for ensuring that all boards and commissions are complying by the open meeting law

▶ 36:33 so the city solicitor and the city clerk ran a required seminar essentially for boards and all boards and commissions on open meeting law because it is obviously our responsibility to make sure that everyone who is appointed understands open meeting law i think that there is um you know sort of a variety of understanding and so bringing everybody up to the same level so that information was provided not too long ago by the city solicitor i just want to acknowledge we have clerk foot here and you're welcome to join at the podium if you wish to address that question oh and uh clerk of committees gabriel you're gonna have to pull up a chair sorry Okay, sort of to piggyback off Margot, Andrew and I on January 6th conducted a training for

▶ 37:20 all of the chairpersons of our current point of bodies and covered everything in A201 of the administrative code. Including, you need to provide in a report, you need to provide minutes within 30 days or three meetings. We covered open meeting law, what needs to be on an agenda. I think we covered pretty much everything in here. that they were aware of rules, regulations, responsibilities, and actually sort of their responsibility in terms of how they're running their meetings. And we covered public comment. We handed them a, they received a presentation. It was wonderfully, it was wonderful. It was very interesting. Some people have never been to a training. Some have had some, we offered the state ethics

▶ 38:03 that's run by the Attorney General's office, told them to take that. And then on January 19th, Shannon Phillips, the City Solicitor, and Amy Lindquist, the School Solicitor. They conducted a training for all appointed body members, anyone who was available to come. They covered open meeting law, public records. That too was very interesting. They had another PowerPoint presentation available, and I think we've done a really good job about talking about their relationship with the Council, their relationship with their own members and bodies, how the terms run, how they can stagger. And I think it was helpful for us to sort of give these volunteers, essentially, the support, education, and training that we can.

▶ 38:47 I would like to note one thing in your list of boards and commissions that was recently uncovered during our research. There are three boards and commissions that have special municipal employee status. One is listed here as Board of Trustees. The other one, thanks actually to Chair Sampson and the Planning Board, is the Planning Board. And the third one is the Historic District Commission. historic district was 2016 and planning what was 2008 and I have sent both of those to general code to be added to our code online as well. So we have been working with doing a lot of research to see what kind of software out there would help enable the city to put this information for the for members of the public

▶ 39:30 so they can easily access you know who's on what board and commission and one of the one the huge goals is to find something that would be in line with the website and the refresh that we're doing currently so that's the work in progress and we did you know look at one with granicus who also granicus is the company that also serves our agenda and meeting portal through iqm2 and they had a really good software solid package that we are actually looking at pretty closely right now um neil however the i.t director would like to vet more uh programs and and software companies before a decision is reached um so uh he is it is my understanding i did uh uh catch up with him briefly today it is my understanding that he's gonna

▶ 40:21 uh work again to connect with uh granicus or iqm2 to see if the software that's offered through them would uh be um you know good for the city um and uh once that has happened we will go from there um he did ask that i do a little more research and and find out what other vendors uh might be compatible to use um so we'll see we'll see what happens there but this is the status as of now um we're waiting for neil to uh meet with the with redicus and we'll go from there and provide you not do this after what we loved about the software that we looked at it was very proactive meaning if you if you're a resident interested in the board started an application walked away from your computer came back or you know left it would say hey you started this are you still interested

▶ 41:16 to your to your inbox so it took a lot of the administrative tasks this is very administrative heavy all the reminders and so the follow-up stuff you know this very strict restrictions in the air on when we have to take the oath and that kind of thing so the software was very excellent that's why we liked it and it was relatively inexpensive if i could just add one more thing um this software also would provide a an email list of uh commission members board members that are set to expire like 30 days prior so that that would give the mayor's office of anyone who's working in this capacity the advance notice to bring this uh to uh for reappointment or to see if they need to you know reach out for any vacancies or for new members so that's a very

▶ 42:03 Jack Eccles: helpful um helpful thing that this software does have and um i think i think that would you know streamline processes going forward after all the heavy and uh work is done at the beginning thank you i just had one one piece of feedback on the open meeting law question and that is that um you know as somebody who tries to keep in you know an understanding what the boards and commissions are doing it's oftentimes hard to follow even if they are technically complying by the open meeting law for example if they're going to vote on a policy oftentimes the fact that they're voting on a policy is listed on the agenda but the details of said policy are not which can be confusing for the public to not kind of understand what they should or should not

▶ 42:45 Jack Eccles: provide public comment on so that's just kind of a piece of feedback as far as say a little more say more about it so so for example the city council when we vote on something there's an agenda packet and there's materials associated with whatever we're voting on oftentimes for border commission it would just list in a pdf right what the policy is and it's helpful to have the details in advance for a member of the public to follow along that would be something we'd have to look at with iqm yep thanks any other questions from counselors um i just wanted to take a moment as one of the co-authors of this order first to thank the three of you i recognize that you're all new in your roles and that you certainly cannot own what came before you but i

▶ 43:28 Jen Grigoraitis: appreciate that there is an effort to try to course correct going forward because it seems like we have some pretty significant course correction to do and while i appreciate that we are meeting the letter of the law which i think is the floor for all of us we want to be legally compliant it's really concerning to me that we have so many members who are so significantly out of date for being reappointed i mean we have a chair who was his appointment expired in 2018 and i would think that also is concerning for those members as well so i really hope this is something that we correct quickly and would be eager to hear timelines for when things are going to get taken care of rather than just it's going to happen soon and just to the questions around the the makeup of these

▶ 44:09 Jen Grigoraitis: boards and commissions i mean to be perfectly candid there's at least three where the membership is entirely male um maybe that's needed based on the role what those boards and commissions do but i also think we would like something that is reflective of the makeup of our city and would hope that that's something that's taken into consideration going forward so i echo counselor Migliorelli for me i don't see these as reappointments i see them as appointments when we're talking about people who are one year two year three years into a new term um but i think i'm excited to see what you all send down to us going forward so thank you are there any other counselors wishing to speak okay i'll entertain a motion to place on file motion to place some

▶ 44:48 Denise Gaffey: file second all in favor hi hi thank you all all right last but certainly not least is order 2022-80 request to approve the melrose housing production plan and i believe joining us we have office of planning and community development director denise gaffey senior planner laurie massa and back from her new role at mapc emma bataglia good evening good evening the floor is yours thank you we're going to have a little presentation that lori's working on right now so before she gets that going i'm just going to make a few remarks um just for starters my name is denise gaffey i'm the director of planning and community development and with me tonight is lori massa she is their senior planner she's working on the slides right now and to my right is emma bataglia many of you

▶ 45:45 Denise Gaffey: remember recognize Emma she was working in the planning office until recently we were very sad to leave her to see her leave but happy that she landed at MAPC and was able to continue her work on the housing production plan so tonight she is here in a different role as our consultant and she's gonna present this the slides before we do that I just have a few remarks to make I'm really pleased to be here tonight we actually started this process out 18 months ago by coming to the City Council at that time we had a grant from the community compact program and that program was funding this initiative along with some funding that we received from MAPC some technical assistance funding so we mentioned at that time that we were going to be working with MAPC the

▶ 46:36 Denise Gaffey: Metropolitan Area Planning Council and we were pleased to be able to do that we We've worked with MAPC on other planning initiatives over the years, in particular our Melrose Forward Master Plan, and we've been very happy with the work that MAPC provided, in particular around community engagement. That is an area that they are very skilled in, and we knew that that was an area that we wanted to really focus on with this plan. We wanted to get as much input from the community as we possibly could so we could hear from a variety of, get a variety of perspectives and have a very balanced plan. And we think we've been very successful with that. So as you know, this process has been guided by the work of a volunteer advisory committee.

▶ 47:30 Denise Gaffey: advisory committee is represented from by members of the community many of whom have expertise professionally in the housing field so we've been very very very lucky to have such a great group to work with the advisory committee also includes representation from the Planning Board our chairman Greg Sampson and representation from the City Council by Jack Eccles so the Planning Board as you know is the planning board is is responsible for approving the um the housing production plan and which they they did most recently on february 28th in their in their meeting their last meeting so and they're also responsible they will be responsible for for many of the implementation tasks in the plan so um very important to have that representation as part of this process

▶ 48:24 Denise Gaffey: and likewise we thought it was really important to have a member of the city council engaged in in this process to, again, the plan does require the council's approval, and we know that it's important to, the council is, council members, like Jack, are gonna be most likely, you know, to represent the community's interest, so it was important to have that representation. So, I realize this plan in this process is not new to most of you, we've, I know, we've worked throughout the process, as I mentioned, with Councilor Eccles participation. We've also, we presented to the council about halfway through the process after our first community engagement effort last year, and we've tried to engage with council members too

▶ 49:12 Denise Gaffey: in terms of reviewing copies of the draft plan. So, as part of the order that I sent down with a copy of the final plan, I also summarized some of the key findings in a memorandum, and Emma's gonna walk through some of those key findings in our slides in just a moment, but just before we do that, I just wanted to kind of sort of reinforce why we're here and why this matters. And we're here tonight both to thank the city council for your support throughout this process, but also to ask for your approval of this plan, hopefully this evening, so we can move forward to the next phase, which is the really important implementation phase. And the plan matters obviously because housing is such a critical part of the community.

▶ 50:08 Denise Gaffey: We all know that housing costs are astronomical and they've really skyrocketed in recent years, in particular over the last 18 months where we've been doing this plan. So many of our residents are cost burdened, that was mentioned earlier tonight, And it's, in fact, true. And the availability of housing is also a huge challenge. So we need to take action to make housing more attainable. And we think this housing production plan is that important first step. And we look forward to moving on to the implementation and having this framework to guide us in our efforts. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Emma. she's going to just walk through some of the key elements of the plan so that we all have a same

▶ 51:00 the same understanding of the plan and then we're happy to answer questions and have a dialogue thank you denise and thank you for having us it's so nice to see so many familiar faces here so as denise mentioned this is the accumulation of approximately 18-month process to come up with a housing production plan and we'll talk a little bit about um you know exactly what an hpp is for anybody who's tuning in who might not be aware of the process that we went through and just to you know point people to the website where we kind of chronicled the project and you can access a draft so if anyone from the public uh hasn't read it we would encourage you to so we're here just to share some of our findings some of the recommendations that we've put forward

▶ 51:57 and ideally get your vote on adoption a housing production plan is regulated by the state by the department of housing and community development they are five-year plans that are meant to come up with a proactive strategy for guiding the development of housing both market rate and affordable housing in terms of creating new housing and also preserving existing affordable housing nhpp helps the community understand its needs set goals around meeting those needs and identify specific strategies like policies and programs that can you know really get to get to work solving some of these key issues you all might be familiar with chapter 40b that is the state regulation which basically says that if you have not met the standard for having 10 percent of

▶ 52:58 your housing designated affordable then you are susceptible to what's called a 40b development where a developer can sort of override some local zoning in exchange for providing housing that includes a certain amount of affordable units and so a lot of what an HPP does is to sort of get communities to meet that threshold both for the purposes of enabling communities to have local control over development but also just making sure that they are planning for new affordable units but chapter 40 B also really just sets out the regulations around what a housing production plan is and what it has to include so we start out by looking at what the housing needs are in terms of demand supply how that comes out in terms of you know

▶ 53:48 housing costs and availability we set goals for the next five years look at potential constraints that might limit how much we can develop or where we can develop identify specific opportunity sites both sites that are sort of already in the pipeline that city staff might be aware of because they've already had some preliminary meetings with those developers and so they know that there is potential opportunity there but also sort of sites that even if they're not before the city at the time everyone can sort of point to that site and say hey I think that's one that should be redeveloped and I think the Caruso site is one that sort of comes to mind for a lot of folks so then we outline specific strategies to achieve these goals and

▶ 54:36 and also the 4db regulations require us to set specific production targets for affordable housing in order to meet that sort of 10 threshold apologies that it's kind of hard to read those dates in there but we kicked off this project in fall 2020 and we focused our analysis around housing needs and setting goals we presented this information to the public during our first digital engagement campaign which consisted of both webinar and online open house activity I'll get into a little bit more information about that on my later slides based on what we heard through that process and also the other sort of background analysis we did around housing needs we identified the constraints and opportunities that would sort of guide us as we came up with a strategy for you

▶ 55:37 we wanted to concentrate development in the city and also think about specific policies and programs that would help achieve our various goals we held another public engagement campaign i guess it was in the summer um around the yeah in the spring um around that last piece of the puzzle getting people's impact uh getting people's opinion on uh different areas of the city where they could see new development happening what types of typologies they were interested in and then asking people to prioritize different strategies and from there we basically finalized our deliverable held a public comment period and here we are at the local adoption stage and assuming we receive local adoption since we've already received it from the planning board we

▶ 56:29 we will then submit the plan to DHCD for approval. And I just wanna kind of highlight the fact that this was a very iterative process whereby we were pulling analysis and then talking to the community and then figuring out what new types of analysis we needed to do and sort of gut checking that with kind of comparing some of those hard data facts with also more qualitative statements around housing and what it means to look for housing and find housing in Melrose, and sort of put a more familiar face, I think, to some of this data that otherwise might be kind of dense, but it very much is affecting people's lives. So as I mentioned, a big piece of this project is figuring out what the local housing needs are.

▶ 57:26 And as Denise mentioned in her introduction, A lot of the metrics that we look at sort of were blinking red because Melrose and the whole Boston region are in a housing crisis. So Melrose is certainly not unique in that, but I think there has been, it has been particularly difficult here just because so many people wanna live in Melrose because it's a great community. But supply isn't necessarily keeping up with demand, which is what, I guess, basic econ 101 tells us will lead to more housing costs. So vacancy rates, that looks at essentially the number of properties that are on the market at any time that are vacant while assuming that not all of them are going to be leased up or sold immediately

▶ 58:20 because for various reasons, some, a landlord or an owner might keep a property vacant. just kind of how it works so a healthy vacancy rate for a rental uh you for rental properties is in the range of five to eight percent and in melrose it uh is about 2.7 and is just decreasing and uh for a healthy vacancy rate for ownership it's about i would say like two to three percent and in Melrose it's about one percent so what that means is there's it's very hard to find a new unit and I think from the affordability perspective it's really significant because if someone has a unit it might not be deed restricted affordable but it's something right now they can afford to pay if they lose that unit it's going to be very hard for them to find something else within their

▶ 59:13 price range we've seen that housing prices have more than doubled since 2000 and you know when we pulled the data for this plan, it was kind of before we really saw how the pandemic affected a lot of the housing market, just because it takes a little while for, you know, the census data and whatnot to catch up. But between 2010 and 2019, we saw prices increase around 61% with the median for 2019, something like $750,000. Whereas, you know, the average, So obviously, keep in mind, average and median are not the same thing, but the average housing price in 2000 was about $268,000. So finding anything in Melrose, even a one bedroom at that price, is probably pretty impossible today. Average listings for all unit sizes except studios exceed $2,000 a month, and for some

▶ 1:00:13 those larger units that might need to be occupied by a family you know well over three thousand dollars so obviously uh that is a huge issue given that there are quite a few rental units in melrose and so what what people can afford to pay is not necessarily what they're on the market for roughly 61 so almost two-thirds of all renters in malrose and more than a third of all households are low income that means they make less than 80 percent of the area median income so what that translate to is almost a hundred thousand dollars for a family of four just because housing costs are so high here so that median income is quite high but that means that there a lot of families in Melrose that would either qualify for affordable housing units or you know

▶ 1:01:07 some of these other housing programs and it's important that people whether or not they utilize them are at least aware that these options exist so they could start you know trying to find something that might be a little bit more in their budget and almost a third of residents are cost burdened meaning they pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs and this is significant because as um you know the ped bike representative mentioned those are costs that people then can't spend on transportation or medicine um or you know those other sort of things that are just really important for people's daily lives because you know every they need every cent that they can get for for their housing and then i think this last bullet point is really

▶ 1:01:51 significant that there's only one affordable unit in melrose for every four low-income households so uh you know even if we reach the 10 on the shi which would be very significant and notable it's still clearly not meeting all the needs in the community so we had a number of mass engagement opportunities through this planning process and obviously we had to you know pivot given the pandemic and the inability to hold in-person public meetings but you know we still So I think we ended up reaching way more people than we ever would have if we just had one in-person meeting. We engaged with over 200 people in the first engagement campaign and then over 400 people in the second. By the time we got into the second digital engagement campaign, I think we really were

▶ 1:02:50 able to assess gaps in the engagement in the first process and we're able to tailor our outreach in order to make sure that more folks and you know a more diverse kind of group of people were participating in that process and we helped promote that through some tabling that we did in downtown Melrose and flyering that we put up and also just getting it out sort of through the the usual channels like the mayor's blog and you know the city website and then lastly we had a public comment period and we received over 70 responses that you know we looked at really carefully and you know it was just really great to know that that many people were interested in reading and giving us some feedback around this draft so in addition to those larger engagement

▶ 1:03:42 opportunities we also had more focused engagement to talk to stakeholders who are you know either very active sort of in the housing sphere or our folks who would most benefit from new and diverse housing opportunities so we held some meetings with the City Council and Human Rights Commission and Historical Commission to understand the priorities of those groups and try to factor that into our planning process we also held focus group meetings with government officials and developers and real estate professionals to understand what is sort of capable what constraints exist and what opportunities the city um you know should work with folks to harness but also we did a number of targeted interviews one-on-one conversations with folks who are sort of traditionally

▶ 1:04:33 underrepresented in urban planning processes and we you know I think that was a really effective way of doing it because a lot of times there can just be a lot of stigma associated with you know folks who might meet the definition of low-income and so I think being able to have one-on-one conversations a lot of people to be a little bit more open in a way that they might not have felt comfortable doing in a public meeting or even a focus group meeting I won't run through this whole list um but as you can see um you know we really had a great advisory committee um just like an awesome group of people who um are not only housing professionals but also you know really kind of acutely understand the needs of the community and are committed to you

▶ 1:05:24 know an equity first approach to housing so we couldn't have done this without them and i just want to give another shout out to them this graphic shows this is a word cloud based on a question on our first open house we asked everybody to give five words that describe the melrose of the future that they want to see and you know some of these words really pop out folks want to see a diverse inclusive affordable community that's welcoming walkable vibrant and this really i think kind of encompasses a lot of what we were trying to achieve in terms of our goals kind of under this on this umbrella you know vision and statement in addition to looking at you know data around housing needs and also looking at specific sites we sort of came up

▶ 1:06:29 with a looser development framework to think about different neighborhoods in the city and then what kind of housing makes sense in them this was not meant to be on like a parcel by parcel basis but thinking more generally around policy changes that we might want to make so for the downtown rail corridor and hospital area the focus is really on encouraging mixed use and multi-family development as well as town homes given that those areas are highly served by public transportation and they're also you know walkable areas where you don't necessarily need to own a car in order to you know access services go to a grocery store go out to eat for the mid-density neighborhoods which makes up most of melrose we are encouraging more missing middle housing typologies

▶ 1:07:19 so this includes things like two and three family homes town homes smaller multi-family buildings that might fit in with the general character of that neighborhood accessory apartments and also conversions of historic buildings you know even if they weren't necessarily being used as housing before i'm thinking about a potential adaptive reuse of those and then for the low density neighborhoods you know understanding that these areas are some of the more environmentally sensitive areas of melrose we still think there are opportunities for some smaller kind of densities that can still you know very well very much fit in with the neighborhood but not change the overall character so things like cluster or cottage style homes and also things like accessory

▶ 1:08:09 apartments because those are some of the areas that have the largest lots so it could be very feasible to include something like a garage conversion into an apartment without you know really anyone in the neighborhood i think even noticing that that had happened we identified 10 specific sites as i mentioned earlier some of these sites are ones that are already in the pipeline that um you know her team kind of know people are considering um and then there are also sites again like the caruso property that are just really good options for new development if it's going to occur um so all the sites that we identified here are limited to larger sites along main street and the rail corridor so we're not suggesting any neighborhood infill

▶ 1:09:02 in particular and obviously these sites we can't guarantee future development but they have potential just because of their location and you know landowner interest so that includes the franklin market on franklin street two different vfw posts uh 3139 west wyoming the mmtv site again the caruso property the greenwood property right at the malden border 171 tremont street in the rail corridor overlay district 1424 tremont street and then also the parking lot on essex street again the The HPP regulations have us set development targets based on what is needed to reach safe harbor under Chapter 40B. And these numbers that we came up with were based on 2010 counts, because that's the data we had at the time, but also looking at the anticipated 2020 numbers in order to figure

▶ 1:10:16 out what was actually going to be needed. And so we predicted that approximately 237 to 294 new affordable housing units would be needed over the next five years in order to reach safe harbor, though by completing a housing production plan that's approved by DHCD, the city could achieve temporary safe harbor from 4DV projects if they meet certain annual production targets. So quite a number of units. So, you know, it's not necessarily an easy thing, but it is possible to achieve a temporary safe harbor before reaching the 10%. This is a list of our five housing goals and, you know, all of the strategies that we lay forward. You know, some of the strategies achieve a mix of goals. Some are more focused on just one.

▶ 1:11:12 But generally, we are looking at achieving a mix of different housing types. So, encouraging different housing options and types to serve households at a variety of incomes and meet the diverse needs of current and future residents. Another goal is around racial equity and advancing equity, promoting inclusion, encouraging wealth creation through housing access for people of color, and also to just enrich the Melrose community through increased diversity and what that means for, you know, creating a better Melrose. Affordable housing on its own is a big piece of this, expanding and preserving deed-restricted and subsidized affordable housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income households, including

▶ 1:12:01 families, enhancing neighborhoods by utilizing housing in order to really balance development with other community priorities. With the understanding that these things don't have to be in lieu of each other, we can try to kill two birds with one stone in terms of things like open space, historic preservation, economic development, et cetera. And then community engagement is another big piece here and just keeping conversation ongoing around housing and the role that it plays in the community and in the region. I'm gonna quickly go through each of the strategies and then these are the associated action items. So our first strategy is around using zoning and design guidelines to encouraging missing middle housing.

▶ 1:12:58 This is a lot of what Melrose is missing middle, I think compared to a lot of more suburban communities, Melrose already has a lot of this, but a lot of those things were built before zoning was ever created. And so in a lot of cases, in a lot of communities, there's still work that can be done to kind of match new zoning with historic development patterns that we would want to encourage. So a big area around this is just allowing two family and townhouses and more zoning districts, making it easier to build accessory dwelling units. Right now, a special permit is required and you're only eligible if it's a family member, which not only just excludes a lot of opportunities but makes it harder to finance for various reasons.

▶ 1:13:49 Looking at amendments to dimensional and parking regulations to allow for a range of smaller housing types and again matching those historic development patterns. Incentivizing the conversion or expansion of historic structures through the use of density bonuses that can preserve some of that heritage also creating more housing and then these last two are around design and making sure that things really fit in with the existing context so these two things are different design standards would be something that is in the zoning and it would lay out kind of things that are required to be considered for those projects so here we were looking at that for some of the denser areas near downtown in the rail corridor but also crafting optional

▶ 1:14:39 guidelines that can you know wouldn't necessarily be a requirement for having a project approved but can still lead to you know better design by the time a project even gets to the Planning Board for approval the next strategy is around encouraging the production of new affordable units and creating more deeply affordable options what we mean by deeply affordable is units that are available at a lower area median income so whereas a unit is considered low income if it's available to someone who makes at or below 80% area median income you could also go down to 50 people making 50% or lower and then when you have something like the Housing Authority those are generally 30% and lower so those are folks with the most housing needs and are often on a fixed

▶ 1:15:33 income the biggest piece you know I think in terms of creating a new funding mechanism for affordable housing is the Community Preservation Act which also would be a property cert cert acts earmarked for sort preservation and open space purchasing property to develop as affordable housing is another piece in terms of working with the private market incentivizing deeper levels of affordability through the inclusionary zoning enhancing the capacity of the office of planning and community development to conduct housing planning and then lastly supporting friendly 40b projects that use the comprehensive permit to build housing where appropriate and sort of another benefit for the city in terms of reaching that state harbor is that projects that are permitted under 40b if

▶ 1:16:26 they're rental units all of those units then count on the shi um so that can be helpful in terms of meeting that 10 percent strategy c is around encouraging a fairer more accessible private housing market one thing we looked at is a down payment assistance fund sort of in addition to the one that is already being offered by the north suburban consortium so this would be for folks looking to purchase a home in Melrose and, you know, we could sort of use this program to target low homeownership rates among marginalized communities. Another thing we looked at is the adoption of universal design standards to increase accessibility for sort of all different age ranges in new housing. And then another thing we looked at is creating local requirements around a notice of sale

▶ 1:17:23 or notice of rent increase to tenants who might be kind of likely to face housing instability and try to decrease some of those risks another strategy is around sustainable development through the siting of new housing so part of that is just creating regulations around baseline requirements a big piece of that would be for on-site green infrastructure which is something that um you know is a big thing that the planning board is reviewing for any project that comes before the board and then also using things like cluster zoning to create you know slightly more density in areas outside of the downtown while also you know being very intentional around promoting open space protection and helping to protect some ecologically sensitive areas

▶ 1:18:17 in addition to those strategies we also outlined a few best practices that are things that the city can you know continue doing or start doing that you know can kind of just create a more educated community and keep people involved in housing planning going forward one piece of this is monitoring parking utilization in the downtown and you know trying to right size parking requirements and new developments so you know the number of parking spaces that are going to be included is actually you know meeting the need and how many people are going to be um people who own a car another thing that we looked at a bit through this process but really um could kind of be a whole other planning process um is around emergence the need for

▶ 1:19:09 emergency and transitional housing um because there's off there is you know we heard through some of our conversations especially with folks at the school department that there is um there are homeless folks in melrose even though that might not be overtly obvious to a lot of people another thing we recommend are hosting regular information sessions on topics related to housing and equity to just create a better understanding of housing issues and bring more people into this process moving forward and then lastly creating an app implementation committee that's really a best practice for making sure that what we put forward actually comes to be and you know we're continuing to kind of make steady progress over the next five years

▶ 1:19:58 until melrose creates a sex housing production plan so now we are at the local adoption stage obviously and it's required that both the city council and the planning board adopt the plan for to be eligible for dhd approval so after we get an answer from the city council whether it's in committee tonight or the full council we'll submit it to dhd for review and approval and if the hpp is approved and if melrose were to permit the target affordable housing units they could be eligible to certify the housing production plan for a temporary safe harbor from chapter 40b development implementing the plan will kind of require its own process for each of the recommendations so i think that's a really important thing to mention that you know this

▶ 1:20:58 is just setting out a roadmap but anything that's going to come before the planning board or the City Council is going to have considerable community engagement and you know different data being presented to the community that can help contextualize what is being proposed and it's you know both the City Council and the Planning Board will play a key role in determining what recommendations are advanced and when they move forward which I presume is why DHCD requires the Planning Board and the City Council to adopt it but also I think it's just a good practice and uh most recommendations require a vote of one or more of the bodies to adopt and some and a lot of the recommendations that we're putting forth in the plan as mentioned

▶ 1:21:45 during one of the public comments only require a majority vote not a super majority vote in accordance with the new housing choice legislation so essentially any zoning changes or project you know actual development project approvals that increase you know lead to increased density and kind of eliminate some other constraints around parking and whatnot only require a majority vote and as i mentioned the implementation committee is key for making progress over the next five years and also just ensuring that the community remains engaged that's it I welcome any questions that you have for us I actually don't I don't have any questions which is probably a testament to how awesome the process has

▶ 1:22:39 Jack Eccles: been thus far so I'll just give my two cents as the advisory boards council representatives it's been a long process and just from the individual interviews focus groups and engagement campaigns this has probably been one of the opportunities for public participation i've ever seen in the city of melrose i believe the goals strategies and actions set forth in the plan would make melrose a more affordable and prosperous community and i think every one of the potential sites proposed would be better off if we built housing on on the site um while this comes with specific implementation strategies i don't think if the counselor had specific concerns about any one of them it would disqualify voting in

▶ 1:23:23 Christopher Cinella: the affirmative because this is a broad-based plan and each one will eventually kind of trigger another public process set forth by the planning board and then eventually the city council so those are kind of my two cents again no questions because of just how awesome the process has been thus far something might come up but i'm very excited for this to move forward tonight thank you president sanella thank you madam chair thank you all for coming this evening and all the work that you've put into this um i guess i'm just i'm looking at the simple math i think you said 237 to 294 for safe harbor so that equates to 2 000 plus units in total that we would need to get to safe harbor to get to that 200 affordable number right but you need

▶ 1:24:12 Christopher Cinella: to build right 10 of each oh 15 i think we require it would depend right it depends on the situation if it was a 40b development and it was all rental then you would get all the units so if we had a large 40b project come in that all counted towards that so in the report thank you for bringing that up it identified partnering with a non-profit entity as a strategy that the city could employ to increase the number of affordable units but i didn't see any other mention in there of specific non-profits I might have missed it I've looked through it a few times but I did research as to which who could you partner with congregational retirement homes came to mind I think they have 30 35 percent of affordable housing in

▶ 1:25:00 Melrose I reached out to them just to just to see cuz I wanted to ask tonight if they'd be interested in partnering with the city on a project and they said yes and not only that they went further to say that they would be in the position to fund it so I don't know if that's a conversation that you had or would have I think it was a strategy that we'd like to pursue so you're already on it but right we haven't gotten to that phase yet that would be the next stage of the implementation as to to try to tackle some of those specific yeah items but that's a great i think they own three right three buildings and they're all paid for and he said we'd be more than willing to fund it and we've also worked with them in

▶ 1:25:53 recent years to preserve some of the units because they had expiring deed restrictions on them um obviously a big well a small group but with you know the work that they do has a lot of impact is the affordable housing corporation um so that's one that the city has worked with a number of times to do slightly smaller projects but um you know i think this has definitely gotten us thinking about other maybe larger developers um and gina on our committee works for beacon properties and so that you know is another one so there's quite a few that are sort of practicing in the region and um are kind of experts at harnessing some of those like federal affordable housing dollars which are a lot more complicated to get so you know working with a non-profit that has

▶ 1:26:40 Manjula Karamcheti: that institutional knowledge goes very far thank you thank you thank you president sonala counselor carm shady and then counselor stewart uh first i just want to take a moment to say thank you so much for the time energy effort many hours that went into creating the housing production plan and commend you on the amount of community engagement that went into putting this plan together um it's big it's detailed there's so much here i think for myself and for anyone who might be watching at home who isn't as familiar with what a housing production plan is like what are the benefits of melrose having one versus not having a plan why did we put in so much time energy and effort into creating this document how is it helpful to us as a city sure i mean a couple

▶ 1:27:32 Denise Gaffey: things Emma talked about the safe harbor which is you know which is is important especially if it's another tool that we have in our toolbox if there is an unwelcome 40b and we do have that pretty and we have met those production targets then we we can we can protect against that and have more control I think the plan is also it is you know it is a best practice and it is you know it's so it is a it is a roadmap for us but it's also I think it's a useful tool because in my all my experience years of experience here like I find that typically developers want to work with the city they actually don't really want come in and do something that's that the city doesn't want to see happen so it's real so they're very anxious to see a plan like this to to know oh here is

▶ 1:28:30 Denise Gaffey: where I would like to see their development opportunities happen you know it just in terms of transparency in terms of like you know it's a big risk for developers to do projects right I mean it's a lot of costs and risks involved and and they can minimize their risk somewhat if they know that the city is going to behind going to be behind it based on the planning process that they've done and i just think too just based on the um all of the data that's in here you really see what the need is right i mean there's i don't think we would have really been able to understand it as fully as we did without this process i mean we we studied it um a little bit more superficially when we did our master plan because the master plan is looking at a bunch of

▶ 1:29:09 Denise Gaffey: different elements right not just housing but economic development and open space and land use and um a range of different things whereas this is really digging deep into the housing needs in the community so i think so i think it's beneficial just you know from that and this is a recommendation in the master plan it was a recommendation the master plan to do a housing production plan it also i should mention it it also um it's a it's um it it will help us with the grant applications there are many grant programs that the commonwealth of massachusetts um promotes that um require that we have certain some of them require certain planning activities or and some of them just will give you points towards you know favorable consideration if you have a a

▶ 1:29:56 Manjula Karamcheti: planning tool like this in place like a housing production plan so just so so i can say back to make sure i understand having a housing production plan like this actually gives the city of melrose more control in terms of what development looks like it provides us potential opportunity to collaborate with developers who understand what our goals in and really are and really want to work together to to move us forward with our vision and there is potential for us to be able to access more grants and other opportunities because we have done our due diligence to create this plan it makes us a more um attractive candidate to potential sources of funding that's correct okay thank you so much i didn't get into the new mbt requirement just because

▶ 1:30:45 it's still in draft form and you know we basically were like almost done with the plan by the time that was really released but you know in order for melrose to stay eligible for grants like mass works housing choice or housing choice community um melrose and you know all the other mbta communities will be required to demonstrate that they have a district of i think at least 50 acres that allows multi-family housing as of right at least 15 units per acre so i don't think melrose is going to have many issues demonstrating compliance with that but it's just kind of another reason why it's important for us to be thinking about this going forward because the city does rely on those sources of state funding thank you so much thank you councillor stewart thank you madam chair

▶ 1:31:36 Robb Stewart: and thank you so much for uh coming before us tonight uh and all the work that you've done um thank you miss pataglia for the presentation that was very helpful and i i tend to agree with a lot of what you have and I think the core premise of what we're trying to accomplish is good it's the right direction there's some things that I want to question them in here you have action 1.1.1 and 1.1.2 that talks about the zoning ordinance changes the restrictions on in-law apartments and the regulation of accessory dwelling units so can you talk a little bit more detail about how that factors into the additional 250 or so units and how are you going to accomplish that by leveraging these how does that factor in sure so you know I think part of the

▶ 1:32:33 part of the piece that this planning process is looking at our additional affordable units but I think also just generally from a supply and demand standpoint we also need to be thinking about things are necessarily designated affordable but might be a slightly more affordable option for somebody so I think an accessory dwelling unit is kind of a good example of that given that it's small and you know it might be a way to sort of generate some additional income for the homeowner without really kind of disrupting the neighborhood if the city wants to really make an effort to have those units be designated as a affordable, you know, there are options around like the housing trust providing funding to

▶ 1:33:16 help, you know, subsidize the construction of those kind of, and then if you provide some of that funding, you can kind of slap a deed restriction on them. So I think, you know, that's one potential thing, but I think also something we talk about in the plan is naturally occurring affordable housing. So even if there isn't necessarily a deed restriction on it, but it's something that is a little bit more affordable than some of the new market rate units that are being built that can still go a long way so where would the what what kind of building would you envision an in-law apartment going in so i mean when i was working for the city i would you know get a call from residents every couple months someone who had a detached garage or you know an old carriage house

▶ 1:34:07 that could theoretically be retrofitted into a small unit so right now only attached units are allowed so you know something in the basement or or over an attached garage but if we're thinking about expanding opportunities you know detached is another thing to look at so you know either converting an existing outbuilding or you know adding a new building on the site but it wouldn't be considered another primary unit so it wouldn't you know conflict with the regulations around more than one primary building on each site so i think it's important to point out too that we haven't um i think you know we recommend this as something to for the for the city to pursue and to consider because we do see this as a this is a possibility especially as emma points out

▶ 1:34:57 Denise Gaffey: a lot of a lot of homeowners have approached us over the years and approached the zoning board of appeals for for the special permit or even for a variance from the very restrictive language that we currently have in our zoning but we know that a lot of work would have to go into evaluating how that regulation is going to work in melrose right that would be a zoning amendment process that would involve the zoning subcommittee like spending quite a bit of time with our staff staff support to kind of research and propose an amendment that's really going to work in melrose so there'll be there would be a lot more a lot more conversation about that and of course ultimately it's the city council that would have to approve that type of zoning change okay all

▶ 1:35:42 right thanks um do you consider um like two families to be part of this as well in other words take a two-family subdivide it into condo and then flip them into affordable housing i mean i mean i think that kind of gets at a couple different things um in terms of creating new affordable units that sort of has been the model of the affordable housing corporation it's like if they're able to find a property usually a two or three unit property that is um slightly below market value though those opportunities are sort of fewer and far between now but then they would you know do some light kind of rehab and then convert those units to affordable units that you know are managed by the housing authority um but

▶ 1:36:38 Robb Stewart: also you know just thinking about the private market and what's allowed one of our main recommendations is looking at you know are there opportunities to allow two family units in more districts that it's not currently allowed in right right and am i correct in my research to assume that those restricted deeds are for a term of 30 years the restricted deeds are they for a term of 30 years I think that's accurate but I want to confirm that I'm so it actually varies I'm usually I would say a minimum of 30 years but a lot of units are in perpetuity in perpetuity the ones that we create currently through our process are in perpetuity okay so if we take a a two family we convert it into two condos that are affordable housing uh that could potentially

▶ 1:37:29 Mark Garipay: either be 30 years up to in perpetuity yeah okay that's awful um i will defer some of my comments and feedback on discussion madam chair so i don't have any further questions at this point i may have more but thank you councillor Garipay uh thank you madam chair um this is being authored by the the mayor and you're here representing the administration um can you give us a little insight does the mayor um agree he supports the plan does he agree with all the strategies within within this plan or does he have any concerns within the strategies i think he agrees that all of these strategies are worthy of exploration okay okay um and you talked about two percent vacancy rate um in melrose right now what what are the surrounding communities um what do the

▶ 1:38:23 Mark Garipay: surrounding communities have that's a good question i don't know that off the top of my head but um i think melrose is definitely lower i think in comparison to some of them and over the last 10 years we've had the hottest real estate market as we all know and and we all agree that melrose is extremely expensive to live in and buy a house um as hopefully we continue that way is the hottest hottest real estate market um but as we add more more um more housing more housing stock do we think that that two percent is going to get get higher if we continue to be such a desirable community um so it gets to it i mean what what's i guess what's the stu what have you seen or what have you talked to in other communities that have adopted a plan like this i mean i think just

▶ 1:39:18 generally like nobody nobody is really able to keep up with demand i think right now because it just it's so you know astronomical um so you know i think but so really the only thing you can do is just try to increase your supply so i think even though melrose has certainly increased its supply and permitted and built a number of housing units you know over the last decade there's still so many more people who want to live here that you know you can only kind of go so far yeah because that number has decreased just in the last couple years even though more units have been permitted yeah i mean i think we all well all agree that this housing crisis crisis is not just morris it's a it's a national issue and yeah it needs national solutions and i think the the

▶ 1:40:09 Denise Gaffey: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, right, they're certainly really, you know, hyper-focused on that right now, and, you know, Emma referenced the MBTA, that legislation, which we'll be talking about as a community in the very near future, but, you know, that's a recognition that all communities really need to do their part, right? We can't do it alone, for sure. I mean, we won't see any movement in any of those metrics if we're only, you know, the only one in this region producing housing. I'd like to thank everyone that was involved, I mean the plan that was presented is a very comprehensive plan and it's quite evident that a lot of work had gone into it. There are some items in this plan that I totally agree with, I agree with more affordable housing

▶ 1:40:58 Ryan Williams: but there are some that do concern me. So I think we all know where we want to be, we may just have different ideas on how we want to get there um but um thank you thank you for all the hard work that went into it any other counselors counselor williams hello thank you for coming out it's late so i'll try to be brief i'm not good at it um first i'm pleased to say i support the production plan i'm pleased that you all brought it to us today it's comprehensive it's well thought out it gives the public a great deal of information about the community that they might not otherwise have like for instance that Melrose population was highest in the 70s that there's such a Delta between the people who rent and the people who own in terms

▶ 1:41:46 Ryan Williams: of income that to me was more surprising than I expected to see I wanted to ask a couple questions about the implementation timeline I wanted to ask something related to to two families as well so for the for the HPP committee like how fast can we get this going you know do you have people in mind is it just the advisory committee and you call it the HPP committee I think that would be acceptable to a lot of folks you know what's the what's the is there more requirements or council requirements does the mayor have to appoint people do we have to approve them or does it can we just go sure I think that's great I think the committee's are such a such an important key to to moving this stuff forward having these kind of un-bureaucratic, non-bureaucratic conversations. We can get right

▶ 1:42:37 Ryan Williams: down to the heart of it. I saw so much in the plan about two families and three families, and I want to out myself here as a proud two-family resident and owner. I am the owner of a two-family that was split into condos in the 90s. My upstairs neighbors lived in Melrose since the early 90s when he bought the place and split it up. Our house is well known on our street. Our flowers come up first people walk down and they see they see the garden that we've got put out front our tomatoes growing and our neighbors come and pick tomatoes from the front lawn and our home is a integral part of that street and of the Melrose community and the two families that are on my street there's three of them in a row are like a who's who of the kind of people that you want to see

▶ 1:43:22 Ryan Williams: living in Melrose right there's a there's a newly immigrated family from India. There's two sets, actually three sets of seniors who are living alone, two of whom are disabled and who are still able to live in their home. There's a single man that lives above me. There's my family. We have two little kids. And the only way that we could get into Melrose was in a two family. And there's another couple, a couple of doors down that is also about to have their first child. And by and large, the two family to me seems like a huge part of the solution to not the well maybe to the traditional like deed restricted affordability but to this idea of the missing middle right and so when i look at the plan one of the things that i notice

▶ 1:44:07 Ryan Williams: is that we have kind of soft language around like well we want to see two families in most places we want to see them in some places we want to have them in in mid or low density you know areas and so i want to i want to hear a little bit more about like what do you consider a low density area are we talking srab the zoning district that sits on kind of the outskirts of board seven and up to the northeast um and uh does this mean that we're kind of that we're soft on two families in these areas i walk through these areas all the time i don't find them to be particularly less dense in in uh and i and i think if i had a preference to say building a you know 4 000 square foot home on a 15 000 square foot lot versus three two families um i would probably

▶ 1:44:54 Ryan Williams: choose the three two families in terms of how they keep housing prices down in terms of how they introduce new options for people to buy and build equity in the community and in the reality that they actually produce a similar low or or lower impact in terms of population growth in terms of you know the amount of cars that wind up in a place um so i i just want to ask i want to ask if you could get a little bit more in depth towards the vision the housing plan puts forward for two families and three families where you really want them um and if you don't want them somewhere why don't you want them there so um i think there is so i think we do see opportunities for two families and i do think they're you know in all of the districts there's probably

▶ 1:45:36 Denise Gaffey: opportunities um i you know i'm not prepared to say specifically you know where because we haven't really dug into it deeply and that would be the purpose and you know bringing it to the zoning subcommittee and really looking specifically because i think i think you know ultimately we would still need to have you know um we need we would need to decide what the regulations you know need to be in order to make sure that we're managing the impacts from that right um you know i think a big concern that people have is about parking and i think you know there's a difference between having a you know development right downtown with all the parking amenities and having something you know that's that's very far away from from public transport and so there's

▶ 1:46:22 Ryan Williams: a recognition that people will have cars and so we need to be careful of that we need to make sure that the parcel in question can accommodate the cars that we know would likely come from a project you know a two-family in a location that's more remote so i think those there's a lot of things we'd have to think about and be very careful i think you raised something that's really interesting to me so we have six people five people sorry that live in our two families single person lives upstairs family four lives downstairs the phase of life that we are in means that those five people have two cars one of them is mine and i drive probably about 8 000 miles a year that includes the occasional like really long road trip i don't drive a lot um across the street

▶ 1:47:04 Ryan Williams: for me there will be a single family home which will have six cars in the driveway right because they're at a phase of their life where they have more kids driving or you know the somebody has two cars or three cars or they have a truck that they want to drive around um so i really look forward to that conversation because i would love to share my own experience about how in fact you know you can have two or three families with little to no cars or you can have single families with a lot of cars that create a lot of you know traffic and things like that um my last question you talked about the mbta somebody talked about the mbta there's a hearing that's required for that by state law by may 2nd right and that's what you're talking about yeah we'll be back okay that's yeah

▶ 1:47:44 Shawn M. MacMaster: okay cool i can't wait for that one too um that's great i appreciate it thank you very much for your time i have nothing further thank you counselor carm shady oh i'm sorry counselor mcmaster for the first time thank you madam chair good evening thank you for being here i think if you work on this there's a difference between the availability of housing and of course the availability of affordable housing so one of the things i just want to be clear on is in the in the presentation the definition for a housing protection plan production plan excuse me says it's a strategy to plan for and guide both market rate and affordable housing i didn't see anywhere in the statute or anywhere in the corresponding cmr market rate mentioned

▶ 1:48:29 Shawn M. MacMaster: anywhere so so i'm wondering within this larger plan and within i guess we'll start with the larger plan and then if we could look at the actual um properties that have been identified where um there are anticipated number of units that are contained in here what are we looking at in terms of percentage of affordable housing versus market rate the presentation focused on affordable housing and that's great i mean that's what my my interest is in but i just don't see where market rate really fits into this because it's not anywhere in the statute that i saw or anywhere in the cmr i mean i think it's that's just operating under the fact that because we're in this housing crisis we just need more housing period so obviously a lot

▶ 1:49:18 of that we want to be affordable but there there is need at all different levels all different income levels um and so i you know i think that's a big piece of it and you know using the inclusionary zoning um to get some of those units and part of it is just on with the understanding that it's really expensive to create affordable units and a lot of times you know you if you can't if you don't have the land to then partner with a non-profit developer to put only affordable units on that site really your only option is to just rely on the private market to do its thing so you know that comes down to the importance of having a good inclusionary zoning policy which you know the city has recently updated is there anything you want to add to that

▶ 1:50:03 Shawn M. MacMaster: um no pretty much that is that is the case thank you um do we do we risk though uh this plan going before uh the state and um the department of housing and community community development saying that this is perhaps outside the scope of what they'd be looking for because um of the market rate component i understand in a community like melrose it's really hard to separate the two um but it doesn't seem very heavy on affordable housing it seems like it would be a broad sweep effort that would include a lot of market rate so how much of this is really affordable housing as opposed to and so i guess let me back up so when i look at franklin um anticipate a number of units that's 453 to 463 franklin that's 18 chipman um the vfw

▶ 1:50:57 Denise Gaffey: that's 42 west wyoming's 27 360 main is 42. that's 129 units so 15 of that we're talking about only 18 affordable housing units so so um i think some of it is the development sites for sure but i think you have to really look at the plan as a whole there's there's an awful lot of strategies in there that attempt to try to get at the high cost of housing in other other ways whether it's you know, through a program that might buy down the cost of a unit to make it more affordable through some type of, you know, down payment assistance program or something like that. So it's not simply just looking at those development site opportunities. Okay. Thank you. I would just add, you know, without a dedicated funding

▶ 1:51:51 Shawn M. MacMaster: source like CPA, of the magnitude of CPA, you kind of, the how you kind of have to rely i think on the private housing market to get most to get a lot of these units okay and um on page 89 i saw uh one washington street mentioned i know i'm a scafnian and mr sampson know i have some interest in that property um we spoke in early fall about the um zoning subcommittee taking a look at that property um i think the plan was to meet in december i think that for whatever reason didn't happen we're looking at january where do we stand with the housing subcommittee um excuse me the zoning subcommittee looking at that property and just to back up the goal of course being to try to find a true way to incentivize mixed use

▶ 1:52:41 Shawn M. MacMaster: in that corridor because as you know right now um the way it zoned it can have mixed use but it's really not to the benefit of a developer to do that so the goal is that we take a fresh look at that and consider changing the zoning laws to try to get something more down there than just more apartments i'm sensitive to the fact that that we need more affordable housing but it's important to me that we have sustainable neighborhoods where people can stay in the neighborhood not necessarily have to get in their car and go down to shaw's and whatnot so um so where where were you with the subcommittee taking a look at that property um so so we are so the subcommittee has not had an opportunity to meet we've just been pretty busy with other things and then of course trying to

▶ 1:53:29 Denise Gaffey: um we'd like to be able to get this production plan approved and and um so that we can then start to tackle our our list of zoning um zoning work that we'd like to do we are we are planning to have a meeting in the in the next couple of weeks we haven't set the date yet but we have had that conversation with the zoning subcommittee so um we are getting you know planning to do that and you know that does tie in i will say to the conversation we will also have when we come back in april to talk about mbta the mbta legislation because we have to be very careful i mean i totally share your goal and what you're trying to do and that was always um that was always what we were trying to do when we created the smart growth overlay back in the

▶ 1:54:10 Denise Gaffey: 2000s that was you know promoting mixed use was our was what we were hoping for in addition to multi-family um and we think we've actually ended up in a with with a nice like diversity of uses there and have been a pretty vibrant um vibrant area but you know the the idea around the housing production piece is still really important and it'll be very important as we for us to attain this um the you know the mbta community status that that the um commonwealth will is requiring us the goals that they're requiring us to meet okay well when we meet in the when you meet in a couple weeks i'd appreciate it if you consider putting that on the agenda even if it means starting the conversation i just don't want to get too far ahead where we start having you know

▶ 1:54:56 Shawn M. MacMaster: zoning uh ordinances that come before us related to the housing production plan and i don't know what the fate of lower washington street uh is or at least what could what what we could be doing there so um i'd appreciate it if we could we could take a look at that um like council Garipay i mean there are things in here that i think um uh should happen um there are some things that i i give me pause um and i guess we can confront you know those things when when they come before us if they come before us i think um yeah the principle of this i support so i'm not going to not support it um because of some of the the issues that do give me pause and i guess we'll just take those when they when they come before us and do some more work on them so thank you for being here

▶ 1:55:40 Maya Jamaleddine: thank you thank you um counselor jamal dean for the first time and then council crime jd thank you uh chairman i just wanted to thank you all for all the great work i wanted to point out that you know with everything that's going on in the city and all the planning that's happening i truly appreciate your hard work working on the memorial hall planning for the library and the hpp it's not easy work and you're getting the work very well done so i appreciate that um i do have a couple of questions um you know with everything you presented i appreciate the thoughts that you have been you've been putting forward to support and include marginalized population and low income folks do we have a plan on how to invite folks to apply or benefit from all these resources

▶ 1:56:36 Maya Jamaleddine: how like do we have a plan to invite or outreach folks with much like marginalized population on how to benefits from the from this plan that we have like i know for now many marginalized population would say Maros don't have that plan how are we going to advertise about that or how are we gonna say we invite you now we we including you in our community that's a great question and I think you know as we get into looking at the different strategies we you know we'll we won't we We want to be mindful of that and we want to make sure that we are reaching out using the same kind of effort we used during this process to make sure that we are reaching out to communities. I think one of the, I'm sure one of the first things that will happen is the housing trust

▶ 1:57:42 Denise Gaffey: or at least one of the things I'm anxious to see happen is to see the housing trust really take off, and I know they've been waiting for this plan to be completed, so they'd have sort of a blueprint in front of them, and I think they'll be very interested in trying to use their networks to really target people that can most benefit from the strategies in the plan. Okay, so from what I'm hearing, so hopefully in advanced stages, you know stages you'll be able to present to us on what is your thoughts on how to outreach or like you're gonna come up with more ideas I'm sorry I'm giving you more work yes yes absolutely we'll do that and also just add that the state already requires that any affordable unit it has to be it has to

▶ 1:58:39 Maya Jamaleddine: go through a very comprehensive marketing process. Generally, the unit is marketed by a lottery agent. And so there are quite a few requirements around reaching out to all the local nonprofits, posting it on the various listservs. So I think there's always an opportunity to figure out how to go farther. But that's already something that's kind of baked into the regulations. My second question is, you have mentioned also that this plan will make Meros eligible for more grants. Is it upon completion, or is it upon approval? So when? Having an approved plan. So once we are approved, we will be able to apply to more grants. Well, it'll be another criteria that we can check off when we're applying for certain grants.

▶ 1:59:25 Denise Gaffey: There are certain grants, like the Mass Works Grant that Emma referenced, or the Housing Choice Capital Grant, where having a housing production plan will give you more points and give you kind of a leg up. do we have any time sensitive or like that we need to pass this plan because we're gonna miss any grant or any opportunity um well we are looking at a couple of um grants right now that actually will where this having a production plan will be beneficial to us so we are we are hoping that it will get perfect thank you thank you all thank you thank you um vice chairman really for the first time thank you madam chair and thank you all i'm not going to belabor the point of all the hard work you guys have done in this and it's so exciting and as someone who

▶ 2:00:14 Leila Migliorelli: um believes that you know affordable housing is something that we need to be focusing on as a community i really appreciate the efforts toward this project and i think um if we can all say melrose is becoming is increasingly even as you said over the last like 18 months more more expensive of a community and it is really a supply and demand issue and this really helps us move towards increasing supply um i'd like to put out a motion to um for for passage um to recommend sorry to the full council um at this time second so we have a motion to recommend for passage made by vice chair migliorelli seconded by councillor williams is there any discussion um councillor carm chadian and councillor stewart in the order i had you um just when i think of the housing

▶ 2:01:02 Manjula Karamcheti: production plan you know we've talked about zoning and a variety of other like technical terms but to me it really comes down to people and so i guess what i'm just really interested in is the constituents that i've spoken to about housing you know there are people who want to get into melrose for sure and can't afford it but there are also those who are renting and would like to own we have people who are trying to downsize but want to stay in melrose we have our melrose high graduates who have gone off to college and are starting their careers and want to come back to this community we have our seniors who are in need of newer different options and we also have families who have parents and other communities who now need to live closer because of health

▶ 2:01:50 Manjula Karamcheti: care and like needing more daily support do you believe that the plan gets us there in terms of if we implement it properly will more of these opportunities come up for this diverse array of people who want to be in melrose and benefit from our city that's our hope i think certainly better than if we didn't complete the plan i mean just because the main thing obviously it's looking at housing at a range of incomes but also a range of types to serve the sort of different stages of life um because i think part of it is if seniors can't afford to downsize then they're not freeing up their single family home for the next family so it's about creating more supply in order to enable that that natural turnover great thank you so much counselor stewart thank

▶ 2:02:36 Robb Stewart: you uh thank you madam chair from the i want to talk about the community preservation act for a a minute um at first blush it looks great tax your tax your residence extra 50 bucks you get all this money from the state and you can do all these great things but when i looked into it a little bit more deeply it seems to be a bit anathema to the initial intentions and here's why the way it works is you you put a surcharge on the deed transfer so when a house gets sold right You get, and then when a council votes on that, the monies that collectively across the whole state then get distributed to the towns and cities who have said yes, we want to spend this extra 50 bucks. And what this has done from what I've looked into

▶ 2:03:32 Robb Stewart: is it's benefited the more affluential cities and towns at the expense of the lower income towns. And to me, that gives me pause. The other thing that I noticed is the money's disproportionate. So Cambridge gets 15% of all the matching funds across the state. They get 15%. So it's not totally equitable in my perspective. in fact I think it's very inequitable and the other thing is 20% of the funds have to go to buy land and so what this does is you know for the more affluent towns they go buy land and it increases the value property of the property because you know they're next to parks and so forth so I just I wanted to get your feedback on that because when I have when I'm reading this it just felt

▶ 2:04:34 Robb Stewart: like it was very different from what was trying to be accomplished yes some of those some of those comments don't make sense to me i mean i guess like you when you say cambridge is getting 15 of the funds i think they're still getting a proportion right it's because they're just generating so much more local cpa revenue that then they get a greater match because correct of what they are so yeah so that's correct that's that has how that works um but essentially work all the monies that get collected across the state then get distributed based on that CPA of state match so all of the money that we locally generate stays in Melrose and then there's additional state match right right that could but it's across the entire state though like it's so if

▶ 2:05:27 Denise Gaffey: Lynn who's not part of the CPA someone sells a house there's that surcharge attached to that deed that goes into the fund that gets distributed across the CPA towns isn't that right no no no not if they haven't adopted CPA if they haven't adopted the CPA then they're not paying that surcharge it's only if you adopt a CPA and I don't think it's just on transfers it's just an annual property tax or charge yes yeah that's not the way I read it okay that's something that I'd like to understand a little bit more sure and we know that a lot of work would have to go in to adoption of the CPA that is a campaign in and of itself it just it just is it is a way that a lot of communities are making progress on creating housing affordable housing it's a it's a mechanism to fund some of

▶ 2:06:24 Jack Eccles: those some of those activities that we currently do not have which is why it is recommended in the plan okay all right thank you any other counselor eccles i just don't know if it's said and i've seen some conflicting accounts about cpa so while we're talking about it it's just worth mentioning that in order to pass the cpa it needs to be done on the ballot by a majority of residents in an even number election year so i just think that's an important call out since we're talking about it on discussion counselor yeah um you know i'm not i'm going to support this as is tonight but i want to just make it clear as i mentioned there are things in there that i do agree with i agree with um we need more affordable housing uh and it's not to say as

▶ 2:07:14 Jen Grigoraitis: things come down that i will not support i will not support those ordinances but i just wanted to say that so thank you anyone else on discussion of the motion before us okay so we have i think i already said we have a motion to recommend for passage made by vice chair Migliorelli seconded by councillor williams all in favor aye okay opposed so we have one opposed okay the motion passes thank you for being here tonight and for all of your work and especially to our audience members who stayed that concludes our business for tonight so I will entertain a motion to adjourn motion to adjourn second motion to adjourn made by Councillor Karim Chady, seconded by Vice Chair Migliorelli. Before you get up, all in favor?

▶ 2:08:07 Aye. We are adjourned. Thank you all.

Original documents

• Minutes (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda (IQM2 PDF)
• Agenda packet (CivicClerk PDF)
• Agenda packet (IQM2 PDF)
• Other (CivicClerk PDF)
• This meeting on the city portal