Amesbury Housing Trust

By City Clerk at 4:14 pm, May 26, 2022 AMESBURY CITY HALL 62 Friend Street Amesbury, MA 01913 Amesbury Housing Trust MEETING MINUTES March 9, 2022 @4:30pm Virtual Members in attendance: Kassandra Gove, Nancy Frick, Steve Stanganelli, Margaret Hoffman, Katy Smith, Andrew Lefleur, Nancy Frick, Kathy Troiano Members Absent: Flo Pamphile, Kerry Hamel Staff: Angela Cleveland 1. Margaret Hoffman called the meeting to order at 4:34pm. 2. Roll call 3. Kathy moved to approve the minutes from February 9, 2022. Andrew Lefleur seconded. Roll Call vote. Unanimously approved. 4. Public Comment 5. Communications • Katy Smith is a new member of the Trust • Angela Cleveland updated the group on the current amount in the Housing Trust which is $90,650.89 6. Other Business • North Shore Consortium Funding Update i. Angela Cleveland tried to modify the agreement to put the new program into place, but she has not heard back from them yet. • Housing Choice Grant Application i. Angela Cleveland said per the last discussion, she touched based with the consultant, and they all said the amount seemed adequate and two said they don’t think the money should be split but one said they should split it up. It will depend on if the group wants to work with two consultants. She encouraged the group to consider using just one consultant. There are seven priorities to the trust, and one is to address the ADU ordinance and affordable housing ordinance. She talked to MVPC and there is no date for census numbers to come out but that will be important to the new master plan. They also need to update their housing production plan regarding the household structure and income and costs. ii. Andrew Lafleur asked if this group was governing this process and what happens if they go over budget? iii. Angela Cleveland said she has worked with the people that would be doing the job and they are all highly respected in their field. The group would give the consultant a monetary limit so they would not go over budget. iv. They send in an expression of interest and then they submit an application for funding. The expression of interest was sent in December and expires  soon, and the state will give its approval and then once the Housing Trust receives feedback, they can submit an application. v. Motion by Steve Stanganelli to recommend the expression of interest be submitted and ask the mayor to submit the application for expression of interest to the agency. Seconded by Andrew Lafleur. Motion passed unanimously. 7. New Business • Collaboration for new housing development i. Mayor Gove showed some pictures of the housing cluster in Westford MA. The units are 2 or 3 bedroom and run for about 200k with a $250 HOA fee. ii. Angela Cleveland said she will have to double check if these types of example clusters would fit into Amesbury’s cluster ordinance. iii. Steve Stanganelli encouraged the group to seek out a developer that would be interested in making these clusters rental properties instead of home ownership properties. iv. Angela Cleveland said they are planning on a public meeting on the topic of MBTA communities. Amesbury needs to accommodate 789 units of housing being an MBTA community. 8. Next Meeting – April 13th @4:30pm. 9. Adjourn – Steve moved to adjourn at 5:28pm. Nancy Frick seconded. Roll call vote. Passed unanimously.