Community Housing Council
Caucus Hall
Members Present: A.J. Alon, Elaine Anderson, Catherine Reno
Brouillet,
Joe Carleo, William Dougal, and Molly Perdue.
Members absent: none
Staff: Matt Mulvey and Maxine Notaro
Others: David Krohn and his business
partner, Jim
The meeting was called to
order at
Meeting Agenda
Minutes
Motion: Approve the minutes of
the August 20th meeting as written.
Motion: Bill Dougal Seconded: Elaine Anderson Vote:
5-0-0.
Presentation/Update on Herring Cove Village,
David Krohn introduced his
business partner, Jim, and then asked the Council if they have had a chance to
look through the packets. The group said
that they had and then an architectural rendering of the proposed finished
project was shown and they were told that it had a definite
Molly Perdue asked what the
significance of the red, blue, and green dots were on the plan? Answer:
the green is wetlands, the red dot line is 50 ft buffer from the wetland.
and the blue line denotes a 50 ft buffer from the coastal bank. If there were a 100 year flood coming through
then the blue line would define the buffer from the coastal bank. Elaine Anderson said that the coastal bank
has been degraded and would be improved through mitigation. Elaine A. said she had noticed the green
section before and she was curious why the changes have been made from the bed
and breakfast and she was offered an explanation about how their bankers felt
bed and breakfast would make for easier, more ready financing. David K. said he cannot go through all the
costs of the project because the builder said not to tell anyone! David continued by saying that we didn’t do
40B – new construction because we are building high end – and maybe to some
degree we’re new at it. “We’ve never
been developers before.” Jim, his
partner agreed saying, “Yes, this has been a real challenge and it’s been a lot
of work. The architecture was a big deal
– what with spacing – wetland issues, etc.
that’s one of the reasons why this piece of land has not been developed
because of all the issues.”
Matt Mulvey, the Building
Commissioner, said, “This plan refers to a bed and breakfast – are you going to
amend this?”
A.J. Alon asked, “Have you moved
the affordable units?” David explaining the
changes said that the fire chief said he needed this turn around and we had to
put the turn around at the end. The
first eight units are ours by right – now we’re complying with the 33% of the new 9 units but we’re not putting all the affordables at
the end.
The plan is to put one
affordable unit in phase 1 and two affordable units in phase 2.
Bill Dougal then came in with
an easel to better illustrate the plan:
8 – 17 units (9) 9-26
(17)
dwelling units bedrooms
9
9 17 17
X 20% X
33% X 20% X 33%
1.8 2.97 3.4 5.6
to illustrate in concrete
numbers what the changes might mean.
Matt Mulvey, joining in the
discussion again, said that this “phase 1 and phase 2” reference was the first
he ever heard about phases. Matt asked
when this had come about? He also said
that the Council had to have a breakdown of the cost of the project, i.e., how
much for the road, how much for the septic, how much cost per sq ft, how much
for landscaping, etc.
Bill Dougal, harkening back to
his easel demonstration, said that we have to have a policy consideration. It’s clear that we have a bylaw for new and a
bylaw for conversion and now we’re entering a new area where there is no
bylaw. This would be within the realm of
legal counsel. Matt said he wrote to the
town counsel and we don’t have anything back from the town counsel but via
phone the town counsel said that the 33% should be based on the bedroom count –
not on number of units.
Joe Carleo said the town bylaw
can apply to the number of bedrooms or the number of units. A.J. Alon asked, “So the sq ft of the units is
not a consideration?” Bill D. said that
as a matter of policy, it’s incumbent on the council to vote on the policy.
Bill D. said that every
project is going to be different and they should be decided on a case by case
basis. David Krohn said that everything
up to now has been based on units. Molly
P. said that we have to deal with this now.
She understands the financial constraints – but if in the future – might
all we have are one bedroom units? “We
do need this interpretation.”
David K. said – “Just help us
to keep this project going.” Matt M. feels that we will have to wait for a
written response from the town counsel before any decision is reached. Bill D. cautioned that if this counsel is
going to push for 6 bedrooms, we’re entering a zone that will get into all
their financial projections and what their profit margin is. We’ll have to go into a meeting with the
developer, so we’re going to have to create some sort of reasonableness – and
that will be a philosophical one related to lots of different factors. There will be a whole lot of questions,
i.e., all factors of market conditions,
etc. We’re getting into an area at a
level that will be taking us beyond our level of expertise.
Bill then asked, “What are we going to do when the
developer comes in for the Shankpainter
project?” Joe Carleo said that in the
purest sense – if the developer can’t do it – he won’t be able to fulfill the
request for proposal (RFP). Our legal counsel said the CHC is allowed to look at all the financial
information and then decide if it’s feasible.
It’s all about the profit. Joe
C. also said that we have to maximize affordable housing and that will be our
standard - go on 33%.
Jim said that you have to
build in a higher profit margin to mitigate the risk the developer will have, i.e.,
hurricanes, law suits, builder quitting, etc.
Elaine Anderson said that this
is related to construction costs; we have to have proforma information in order
to see if you can afford to build it. David
K. complained that they could get clobbered if prices drop.
A.J. Alon said that he doesn’t
see why we’re focusing on the market rate of this project. Addressing the developers, he said, “You
can’t expect to put your risk on the CHC.
Matt Mulvey asked what it would
cost a sq ft to build it? Ans: $160K per unit.
Joe C. said that the big
difference between Shankpainter and Herring Cove is that Shankpainter will have
a lot of public money and there’s the difference in negotiating with a
developer that has it’s own money.
Jim said that Dave K. started
over a year ago and the town cared about dwelling units; that was the
message. “We’ve spent about $40K for all
our re-dos and now it’s not fair that all your policy changes are affecting us
adversely – again repeating the statement made at the last meeting, “If we have
to do another redesign it will be without the affordable piece!”
Maxine Notaro said that if
they pull out the affordable piece, they can only do the eight.
A.J. said that they can’t get
their building permit if they remove the affordable component.
Matt M. said the entry card to get the permit was the affordable
units. Jim said that they’ve been at
this for at least 8 months; this would be a success story and the Town needs a
success story.
A.J. Alon in defense of the
Local Housing Partnership (LHP) which he chaired before it folded into the CHC
said that at the beginning of the Herring Cove presentation, they didn’t have a bedroom count.
Joe C. said that one of our
goals is to establish clear guidelines and he doesn’t think we can necessarily
say no to this project. There isn’t a
whole lot happening right now and we now
have to establish clear standards.
Motion: Move this project
forward pending proforma information that we will eventually need.
Motion: Elaine Anderson (no second) Motion doesn’t carry.........
Bill Dougal said that we
should seek legal counsel advice to see how we should proceed due to
confidentiality.
Elaine withdrew her motion.
Matt Mulvey advised that the
board needs a meeting to go over policy procedures. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday morning, September 4th
at
A.J. Alon asked if everyone was
comfortable with the affordable units being built in phase 2? The developer – when asked about phase 2
timing, said that - depending on the market then he would start phase 2 - so
there was no timeframe.
Discussion on 5 key goals of the PCHC and the new Housing Office
Bill D. said that there is so
much good stuff in all of this that we need to spend four or five hours on all
of this. Joe C. said that our goal
should be to maximize all of the affordable housing units.
Bill D. said that there are 3
key areas…… 1) by-laws regarding
critical resources in the community i.e., smart growth and funding, 2) need for
community housing, and 3) the income levels and we will have to put all of
these together and come up with policy procedures. “As we tackle
After a bit more discussion on
readiness, the following motion was made:
Motion: Postpone the September
10th meeting with the BoS.
Motion: Cathy Reno Brouillet Seconded: Elaine Anderson Vote:
5-0-0.
Regarding the local
preference: the affordable condos can’t
be deed restricted because once the person decided to sell they shouldn’t be
forced to sell to only people living in town – but the affordable piece would
remain in place. Ask if we can get this
to the town counsel and see if it can be a by-law change for fall town meeting.
Adjournment happened at
Respectfully submitted,
Approved by
_____________________________ on ____________, 2007.
Joe Carleo, Chair