Community Housing Council
Judge Welsh Hearing Room
Members Present: A.J. Alon,
Elaine Anderson, Catherine Reno Brouillet,
Joe Carleo,
William Dougal, and Molly Perdue.
Members absent: none
Staff: Maxine Notaro
Others: Elizabeth Bridgewater,
Polly Hemstock, David Krohl,
Ted Malone, John Ryan, and Jim
Watkins.
The meeting was called to
order at
Meeting Agenda
Minutes
Motion: Approve the minutes of
the August 27th and September 4th meetings as amended.
Motion: A.J. Alon Seconded: Molly Perdue Vote:
5-0-0.
Discussion with John Ryan /5 Key goals for the PCHC
Joe Carleo
opened the subject up for discussion.
Bill Dougal said that his initial impression –
it’s a good start but a lot of them are process oriented goals. He continued by saying that a lot of people
are looking for us to make affordable housing happen. We should be on to the next project at this
stage! We should be having the
capability of bouncing a lot of balls at this time. That’s the bottom line. The goals are just like mechanisms without
any tangible goals. What is our time
line for creating them? Bill would like
more of a focus on the goals driven by outcome.
He likes to keep his eye on the end point and how we get there. Bill looked at the goals and he thought they
were a great template. How do we
guarantee that local residents will be accommodated? One of the council sees local preference as a
big headache and we need guidelines. As
in - which goals are going to be the priority goals?
Bill D., still commanding the
discussion, asked - what is the goal – how many – how does the local preference
criteria work?
This community will not allow us to take our sweet time. The
community is not going to support tax increases unless we are going to get some
projects.
Molly Perdue said that we’re
going to need to multi-task – we can’t stall on - what’s our next project? When educating
the community is mentioned - this is important!
Most people don’t know the need and don’t know the numbers. Lots of people are not able to afford home
ownership. And the housing office – how
do we establish that? If you don’t
understand this, how do you participate?
What is the mix going to be?
Bill D. doesn’t see the council
having the ability to do the analysis without an expert. We need to know how many units, etc., and the only
decision left is income eligibility.
Until we grapple with financial issues, we have to determine officially
what we want to achieve.
A.J. said that low and
moderate are the same thing. Bill,
taking over the conversation once again, said that perhaps his terminology is a
bit out of sync.
Molly Perdue said that we have
applicants coming before us – you’re talking about only one aspect. Policies and procedures are not the bottom
line. Bill is talking rentals.
John Ryan finally got an
opportunity to join the discussion that he had been asked to both attend and
lead. He said that Bill wants goals and
targets over a large period of time and we have to have a starting point for
this. John R. went to the easel and said
that we have a report on rentals, amounts, etc., and we can do a graph over a
several year period – as in years 1, 2, and through year 10. He further said that maybe 10 or 12 this year
and maybe the following year a few more additions. At the same time you can say – using the
income chart for needs – that we will eventually hit the needs of those
different levels. That piece will help
you draft a long range plan. You talk
about having to know where the financing is coming from - but there’s the
financial plan of the offices that we’ll be working for. Do you want us to go with the needs that this
professional put out there? You’re not
going to get the 250 units at any time soon.
Joe C. did his goals before
John’s report came out. It’s more about the
things we need to do. John Ryan agreed - Bill is talking
about something longer and broader. Bill
D. also feels
that we need the continued services of John
Ryan. “We need to put a little more meat
on this - as in which goals are most critical,
etc.
Molly P. asked - talking about the
need of 250 rental units – how would you suggest turning this into project
after project?
John Ryan said that there are
some basics – short answer is that if you’re committed to a certain number of
projects. Go after private funding and
when that ends, most of the private projects you have will be completed. If people can’t afford to rent, then they certainly
can’t afford to own. When you’re working
with a private developer – his sense is that the needs of the town are being
met. You try to address and negotiate
and then you, as a group, are addressing the needs as the projects go on.
Bill said that the biggest
contribution will be 80/20 rule – 80 percent of the success will be related to
the larger projects, too. He wants to be
sure that this council envisions where we can derive the greatest
response. We can get caught up on
semantics about these smaller projects and ignore the overall needs. John R. and Joe C. had a conversation about
the feasibility of different projects.
John agrees with that
assessment. We’ve all seen how long it
takes. There’s a lot of value in looking
at future developments. He thinks that’s
a piece of work that can be done. Also,
the role of the housing officer is about educating the public in what is happening
in community development. Once you begin
to get that level of credibility maybe you can go to a town meeting and get
permanent funding.
Elaine A. said that we should
focus on the funding initiative of government funds. Bill D. said that maybe one source could be
the CPC – or whatever?
John R., speaking about
procedures, said that you want to communicate with clarity and he sees that as
one of the primary roles of the housing person you hire. These issues may be problematic and he would
encourage you to invite people from the different committees to your meetings and
ask them what are the impediments – ask the town to see where the bottlenecks
exist? If I were giving you advice
(which I am) it would be to do whatever you can do to get a person hired and
make “clarity of information” a goal. Begin
the process of seeing what your next projects are. Start negotiating with private developers and
get clear on that.
Bill said that he would be
reluctant to get into an analysis of procedures. It’s a quagmire. ConCom has its own
agenda from the Commonwealth and BoH is totally
guided by the Commonwealth – and Zoning is driven by the state and was crafted
in great measure by the BoS. We would be taking on decisions from the BoS. Molly said that
we are policy setting. Also. do we want phasing – or don’t
we? Molly was pushing for a dialog to
be established..
Joe C. said the next step
would be in having a definite plan and maybe ask John to help. John - in response – suggested changes and will put it out
as a draft statement. Joe would like an
executive summary of the draft statement for greater clarity. Bill wants a timetable and - to keep it
simple – maybe first year and 2 years out, etc. and identify the project as
high priority, etc. John R. said that he
still has 45 hours of professional time left.
A draft was promised by John in 2 weeks or so.
Discussion with Polly Hemstock
The council asked Polly if we
could reapply for this TAP grant? She said that the Cape Cod Commission
sometimes does it twice. Polly H. gave
out both her business card and a draft of her brochure that could be sent to
all property owners. She went on to
describe it and got a whole lot of feedback on it, i.e., “what is the property
exemption?, etc.”
Joe C. thinks the overall information will be skimmed and then anyone
interested will go over it and ask for more information. Polly asked for a suggestion of a graphic for
the cover of the brochure.
Ted Malone said that one interesting
thing in the plan is that - the tax exemption is written so that it may be
written up to 80% .
It’s a gray area and eventually will have to be resolved. He had this same conversation with Paul Gavin
the other day. The actual law refers to
a person of low income and – for the most part HUD standards drive the
guidelines. The Assessor said that he
has about 50 units under that tax exemption program.
Bill said that it’s important
for us to know - from Paul – how many applicants the Town has had for the tax
exemption program – and people should be told that all their applications will be
kept confidential.
Polly was thanked and told
that this brochure was a great start. The
group wants the mission statement of the council on the back of the brochure.
Maxine Notaro
announced to the gathered group that the Planning Board has no intention of
bringing any zoning articles to the special town meeting in November.
Public Statements
Elizabeth Bridgewater who is a new resident of
Bill spoke to the chairman of planning
and he’s more than willing to have a joint meeting with the Community Housing
Council.
Motion: Move that this council
have Joe C. contact the chairman of the Planning Board about having a joint
meeting.
Motion: Bill Dougal Seconded: Elaine Anderson Vote:
5-0-0.
Any other business
David Krohn
and his business partner, Jim Watkins, were told at the last meeting of the CHC
to return only after they had attended ConCom,
Planning, and Zoning hearings. They have
yet to present to Zoning so all they had to say were moot points. They spoke for about a half hour and said
that Zoning’s next meeting wasn’t until October 3rd so they were
asking ONLY for conditional approval. It
didn’t happen.
Adjournment happened at 6:30
p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Approved by
_____________________________ on ____________, 2007.
Joe Carleo, Chair