Affordable & Fair Housing Partnership

Easthampton Affordable and Fair Housing Partnership September 28, 2023 Minutes Meeting called to order 6:02 Members present: Janna Tetreault, Ben Breger, Kiam McQuaid, Jackie Brousseau-Pereira, Shira Simon; Easthampton Planning Department Staff:-Jamie Webb Guests: Lindsey Rothschild, Mike Michon (1 Ferry St), Richard Kingston and Peter Serafino from Home City Housing 1. Approve August meeting notes Breger motion to approve, Brousseau-Pereira second, approved unanimously 2. Discussion with One Industrial Lofts and Home City Housing Mr. Kingston described Home City Housing as a nonprofit that just does affordable housing, with an array of units - multifamily and single family, historic rehabs, etc. They have worked in Springfield building housing for people at or below 80% AMI. They have experience working with tax credit programs. They also have partnered with Wayfinders to do social service programming. For 1 Ferry Street, they are proposing 96 units with parking below the building. These will be 1 and 2-bedroom units. Most will be reserved for households earning less than 60% of area median income and a few will be market rate. They want to focus on people who have higher need and have wrap around services attached to them. There will be a solar component in this project. The expected timeline to complete is 3-5 years. They expect to put in a funding request in November. Mr. Michon says he’s wanted to put in affordable housing since the beginning (2017) and feels it will work with Home City Housing as a partner. Mr. Kingston added that is interest from CEDAC and other agencies to help fund this project. Member McQuade asked how the Partnership could help make the case to the community and support funding requests. Mr. Kingston responded that they would like community support for the project. It will take city investment as well for the project. They would also appreciate a letter of support for a CPA request. Home City Housing contracts their management out to Appleton. They have tested them out to make sure they will be able to support the people in the Ferry St. units.  Brousseau-Pereira made a motion that the Partnership could write a letter of support to CPA for this project. Simon seconded. Motion passed unanimously. 3. City Councilor Candidate Forum Questions If a forum is planned, there are questions we would like to ask candidates: How might city council candidates feel about zoning changes – for example multifamily by right? There was a suggestion to invite candidates to the next Partnership meeting for a small housing summit. Guest Lindsey Rothschild suggested educating candidates on the various affordable housing projects that are underway. Another suggestion was to have a forum sponsored by the Easthampton Affordable Housing Coalition and the Easthampton Democratic Committee. Members Brousseau-Pereira and McQuade will plan this. 4. Discussion of potential zoning amendments/review of current zoning Senior Planner Webb sent Partnership members some of the zoning code to review based on our previous discussion. She reminded us that there are contradictions in the Zoning. We will review and discuss at next meeting. Special permits, site plan approval, multi-family are most used pieces. Recommendation to focus on the table of uses 5. Other items: None Brousseau-Pereira motioned to adjourn the meeting; McQuade seconded. Meeting adjourned at 6:59pm Respectfully submitted, Jackie Brousseau-Pereira