Municipal Affordable Housing Trust

Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Agenda January 9, 2024 10:00 AM Virtual Meeting To all residents, this meeting is available to be attended in person and via the Zoom platform. In an effort to ensure citizen engagement and comply with open meeting law regulations, citizens will be able to dial into the meeting using the provided phone number, or citizens can participate by using the Zoom link provided on the agenda. Please click on https://zoom.us/j/99702174807 or call on your phone at 1-929-205- 6099, meeting ID is 99702174807. 1. Approval of Meeting Minutes – December 12, 2023 2. Update - Maxine 3. Update on Franklin Ridge Project – Bryan Taberner 4. Future Agenda Items Comments: This listing of matters is that reasonably anticipated by the Chair which may be discussed at the meeting. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law. This agenda is subject to change.  Municipal Affordable Housing Trust December 12, 2023 Meeting Minutes Meeting called to order, members present: Maxine Kinhart, Susan Younis, Kimberly Mu-Chow, Chris Feeley, Chris Vericker. Also present: Bryan Taberner Meeting called to order by Chair Chris V. at 10:00 AM 1. Approval of minutes of August 15, 2023 – Motion to Approve the meeting minutes of August 15 by Chris F. SECOND by Susan Discussion: Questions relating to August 15 – Maxine mentioned that Susan had asked for an update on the General Business Item regarding the friendly 40B apartment complex off of Pleasant Street. She contacted Chris F. who stated that he had talked to Jamie about this and thought it was in his hands now. Action Item Added: Have Maxine contact Jamie to determine what is the status of this matter. Roll Call: Maxine-Yes, Susan-Yes, Kim-Abstain, Chris F.-Yes, Chris V.-Yes VOTE: 4-1-2 *Chris F asked who had abstained and Kim said she had because she was not at the meeting. He added that you do not have to attend a meeting to vote on the minutes. Maxine agreed saying that as long as you have read the minutes, you can vote on them. Re-VOTE/Roll Call: Maxine-Yes, Susan-Yes, Kim-Yes, Chris F.-Yes, Chris V.-Yes VOTE: 5-0-2 Motion to Approve the meeting minutes of October 10, 2023 – by Chris F. SECOND by Kim Discussion: Amy Frigulietti listed as member of the Trust in the October 10 minutes. Technically, don’t think she is a member. Roll Call: Maxine-Yes, Susan-Yes, Kim-Yes, Chris F.-Yes, Chris V.-Yes VOTE: 5-0-2 2. Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Meeting Dates – (taken out of order) Motion to Approve the schedule by Chris F. SECOND by Susan. Discussion: None. Roll Call: Maxine-Yes, Susan-Yes, Kim- Yes, Chris F.-Yes, Chris V.-Yes VOTE: 5-0-2 3. Affordable Housing Financing Update - Chris V. wanted to confirm the dollar amount of $954,031 in the Trust Account and does that include the $500,000 that we owe to the Franklin Ridge project? Maxine stated that $954,031 is the amount we have in the account today. We have not paid out the $500,000 that we owe to the Franklin Ridge project. We have paid out the $30,000 we voted to the project. After we pay out the $500,000, we will have $454,031. That is the amount we have available. Final comment was that we have in the bank, $954,031 in the Trust and $22,391 in the Administrative Account. Chris V. is not clear who is responsible to pay cost overruns on the Franklin Ridge Project. Maxine and Chris V. would not be in favor of spending that account given the unknowns of the project. Maxine wanted to share that 144 Grey Wolf Drive that has been vacant for a couple of years now will finally close in the first week of January at the price of $250,824. 90 Palomino closed in  August. 67 Palomino has also closed. We have no more houses available now, but we have a lot of affordable apartments coming. We have a friendly 40B off of Pleasant Street behind the St. John’s church and another one at Grove Street and three more units in the second Taj development across from Honey Dew donuts. This is the second Taj development. This development adds 10% affordable so we only get the 3 units and we do not get credit for the rest because of the program it is built under. 4. Update of Franklin Ridge Project – Bryan Taberner We did utilize $31,172.50 of the trust funds on site planning and things of that nature and for the roadway improvement project. Bryan stated that he had wanted to have a design of the project that we came up with and had asked Mike Maglio to send the most recent diagrams. They have been changed multiple times due to wetlands issues over the last few months. A couple of months back the trust was shown where the actual roadway will be. We have some wetlands issues and we have two lots that will be on either side of the road which will be subdivided and will be buildable lots. One lot is larger but has a lot of wetlands so is actually smaller and is up the hill to the left. On the other side of the road to the right will be another good sized parcel. The design of road improvements will be completed very soon and the breaking ground on the road improvement portion of the project will be sometime in the next year. It’s not clear if Jon Juhl will have all his funding to begin his portion at the same time. Bryan will have updates at the next meeting. The subdivision plan has to be approved by the Conservation Commission and the Planning Board but before it goes to them, he would like to give the Trust the opportunity to look at them. A 3.2 million dollar grant to the town will cover all or most of the road improvement project, build the road underground infrastructure, pump house needed for the water system, and lights and sidewalks. Then Jon’s funding will take care of his site. Once we have the subdivision plan done, he will take ownership of that property. Town of Franklin currently owns the property. The Trust has the authority to donate a portion of the two subdivision lots for the purpose of affordable housing. There is the portion that you have already promised Jon, plus two other parcels. Once we have final lines on the subdivision we are working on, then it can be donated to Jon’s project in conjunction with Jamie and the Town Attorney who would like to have input on the actual timing of when it goes to Jon. Once subdivision plan is approved, it goes to the registry. We then can have the parcel divided into pieces. The other two lots stay with the Town. The trust is not done just because the money is running down. You still have land. Susan asked if the Trust has the ability to get more money. Chris F. stated that there is another way to fund the trust. He knows of a potential 40B project that might be an appropriate project to allow a buyout. The condos could be up to $800,000 to $900,000. We allowed both Eagles Nest and Palladini Village to buy out because the unit selling prices were too high. We did this before when we utilized those funds to buy houses that needed repair. We bought them at $300,000, fixed them up, and then sold them for $165,000. Gus was very instrumental in that project to get them fixed up and ready for sale. Don’t think he would be available in the same capacity now. Chris V. asked Kim what was going on with her committees. The Housing group you stated you are working with for the last few years. Do you have any further update? Kim stated that the hospital (Milford Regional) is in the process of doing a Community Health Assessment. Three years ago they did a really big one. What happened during Covid was food insecurity and housing/homelessness really rose to the surface. As a result of that, when we actually did the last Community Health Assessment, it rose to the top or near the top of the Hospital’s priority list. Milford Regional has the normal mental health and substance issues and they have access to health care. They’re looking at health outcomes in Worcester County and also homelessness and food insecurities came up. When the hospital has done all sorts of improvements in the past, they’re expected to put a certain percentage of what they spend back into the community. That goes to what we call a Community Health Network and we are area 6 and Kim is currently the chair (but soon will not be the chair). Our priority areas are mental health/substance abuse and then food insecurity and homelessness. We do health care grants to non-profits to be able to try and improve health. With housing it is difficult for us. We actually did a homelessness panel discussion and we have a fair amount of money, but when you start looking at construction, it is not even a spit in the bucket. If a non-profit was looking to try to do a social services project and they wanted to have startup funding to do that, we could because our fall grants are about $10,000 and our spring grants are up to.$75,000. It is a fair amount of money. There is a sub- committee on homelessness that is actually between the hospital and CHNA6 and we are currently trying to figure out how we can do a campaign to make people a little more aware of the problem. We have people who live in the woods. The fastest growing segment is the elderly. You have a woman who has been a homemaker and the husband dies and she loses the house and now she’s living in her car and she’s in her seventies. So we’re trying to figure out how we can best bring more attention to that and to whom we want to bring that whether it’s the different towns or the actual communities, etc. We have been working on that for several years. Chris V. had no idea that food insecurities and homelessness is right up there as part of the health initiative. Your spring grants of up to $75,000 for the right project could serve as seed money perhaps for something. Housing is such a long term issue. It is easier to put money in the food pantry than it is to think about construction which is longer term housing. Kim stated that it is hard to put money in the food pantry because we view ourselves as doing infrastructure and we are having philosophical discussions on the food pantry. We could give our local food pantries our entire amount and they’ll spend it all and will still want more. It is not sustainable. We kind of try to do more infrastructure such as, for the Medway Village food pantry, we bought them a $75,000 refrigerator/freezer that could be stored outside and that actually increased their capacity to serve families. Chris V. asked if there was anything to discuss for our next agenda. Bryan is going to be back on the Franklin Ridge project and Maxine is going to contact Jamie on the affordable project on Pleasant Street at St. Johns. Motion by Maxine to Adjourn, Second by Susan. Roll Call: Maxine-Yes, Susan-Yes, Kim-Yes, Chris F.-Yes, Chris V.-Yes. Vote: 5-0-2 (Submitted by Maxine Kinhart)