Amesbury Housing Trust

By City Clerk at 8:23 am, Sep 19, 2022 AMESBURY CITY HALL 62 Friend Street Amesbury, MA 01913 Amesbury Housing Trust MEETING MINUTES November 10, 2021 @4:30pm Virtual 1. Kerry Hamel Pope called the meeting to order at 4:34pm. 2. Roll call: In Attendance: Kassandra Gove, Nancy Frick, Steve Stanganelli, Kerry Hamel-Pope. Staff: Angela Cleveland Regards: Flo Pamphile, Margaret Hoffman, Drew LeFleur Others: Meegan O’Neil, Tania Hartford, Merrimack Valley Habitat for Humanity 3. Steve Stanganelli moved to approve the minutes from October 6, 2021. Nancy Frick se- conded. Roll Call vote. Unanimously approved. 4. Public Comment 5. Communications • Housing Trust Account update, $93,268 is still the balance, according to Angela Cleveland. 6. Other Business • Update on Council Ordinance 2021-107: An Ordinance to Establish a Means- Tested Senior Citizen Rental Assistance Program. Steve Stanganelli said that this was approved by the City Council of a 5-4 vote at the October 12th meeting. The next step would be to set up the protocol for how the Trust administers the funds, decide on credit limit, the % through the Mass Circuit breaker program, how we will review the applicants, how we communicate it, what does the application look like, etc. Steve suggested that the Housing Trust review the applications, but that can be voted on by the Trust. He doesn’t anticipate we will be doing this in the near future. Kerry mentioned that this can be a heavy lift, so how can the Housing Trust play a role. The Mayor mentioned that we shouldn’t put anything up on the website until we are ready to support this. All agreed that we should start this discussion in December. • North Shore HOME Consortium Funding Update. Angie said she has reached out to Jeanne Geiger and Community Action to let them know about the HOME Funds. Angie has received paperwork from HOME Consortium to get this moving. The goal to 7. New Business • Meet and Greet with Merrimack Valley Habitat for Humanity – their model is that each home costs about $300,000 to build, and sell for $200,000. Also focused on home rehabilitation for seniors. Biggest barriers to entry is land acquisition.  Partnering with communities/developers to overcome this barrier. Also use inclusionary housing ordinance to build units. Closest location for their projects are in Hamilton, Wenham, Lynne, Lawrence, Andover, and Salisbury. They would like to see something in the region. They have looked at a couple of sites in Amesbury, but nothing has panned out yet. Any recommendations for locations and/or developers? Kassandra asked how we could help? Private landowners could have land…in Hamilton the Housing Trust donated funding for it. In Wenham, the Planner encouraged a friendly 40B that Habitat was working on. Do we have a TRD clause in our Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. When Tania was in Salem, they put up an RFP for a house with Habitat in mind for it – they can do rehabs as well. Steve asked about how many other communities they mentioned have a CPA fund. Patchwork: Hamilton does, not sure about Wenham, Rockport does. Have they ever worked on a conversion to condominiums? Meegan said if they did, they would buy the building and convert them all to affordable. They haven’t engaged in market rate yet, but could think something like this through. Somerville has just put in some interesting restrictions to keep rentals from diminishing. Kassandra wants to put together more clustered, smaller footprint housing. In Salisbury, the Affordable Housing Trust has contributed about $40,000 per unit over a series of years. The land was donated by the Institution for Savings. Land and infrastructure costs the most. Talked about parcels 27-1, 27-8, 26-23 for a potential development. If Habitat gets involved, a deed restriction is put on the property. The monitoring agent varies by community. Some communities do it, but others Habitat is the agent. Usually place a right of first refusal on the property so it maintains its affordability. They can help with site investigation. Kassandra asked if it was ok for Habitat to work with Angie to filter properties. They said yes. Nancy clarified that Habitat is actually Essex County Habitat for Humanity. Steve asked about communal housing, like AARP’s models. Property on the corner of Dewey and Madison still hasn’t been developed. Development approved, but never built. Possibility? ARPA Funding is also an eligible source. Kassandra said the City has not decided what to do with our funds yet. HOME funds are also an option. If we have some ideas on properties, we can come together to discuss options. At 5:20pm Meegan and Tania left. We continued talking about putting together a list. Members starting talking potential lots. 41 Merrimac Street was discussed. It was decided that we should send the Tax Title list to Habitat as a place to start. 8. Next Meeting – December 8th @4:30pm. Do people want to come back in person? 9. Adjourn – Steve moved to adjourn, Kassandra seconded. Roll call vote. Passed unanimously.