okay I think all systems are go apologies if we're having yep we're on on TV excellent all right good evening everyone um welcome to the May uh 8th 2024 uh meeting of the city of Rivier affordable housing trust fund board uh my name is Joe grai uh chair of the affordable housing trust fund board and uh we're back here in the city council chamber today um as always we'll start uh just by taking a quick call of the role um so I'm present um Vice chair Claire and zerillo present present here with us uh on Zoom our Treasurer anio SMI here present and Leila Petri Lori mano present uh Matt wolfer present and Dean Harris and then Deb Frank is uh not present today apologizes for her absence um okay and then also I note that uh representing the city here is Lena mcera from The planning Community Development Department uh first item is ratifying the previous meeting's minutes which I sent around uh for folks to review I'm going ask for unanimous consent any objection seeing done um finances update now so we'll go to anio for that good evening everyone this is an update from the assistant budget director for the city rev uh auditor's office assun to Newton the current budget for the affordable housing trust committee is 1 million 13,850 and4 C excellent okay now we'll move on to some standing items and updates um so top of mind just to update folks on 133 Salem Street the Northern Strand condos uh we've been in the process of finalizing you know we had kind of gone through the steps of um adding two units to that development um via our efference as the affordable housing trust fund board and uh Claire and myself and the staff here in the city have been working with the developer with Chapa with um Mass housing with various folks and with our consultant Liz rust to nail down the details for that um and now we believe that we're in a pretty good place to kind of know how the process is going to work um so with the authorization of the board and with the board's agreement uh We've determined that the best way to go about things um to make sure everything works as smoothly as possible is for our deed restriction uh for the unit to mirror the Commonwealth Builder uh program and the way it works so that's a 15year DED restriction I know that some of us had a preference for permanent in perpetuity I kind of did as well uh but it would create some complications with the lottery process to do it as a different you know type of deed restriction rather than mirror the Commonwealth Builder um by aligning it not only is it kind of one Lottery process as outlined in the marketing plan which I sent around to everybody and also you know will be publicly available once it's done um um it also means that Chapa can monitor do the monitoring of the deed restriction you know make sure that income is verified and that the policies are followed appropriately uh they were already going to do that for the other units so now they can do that for these two as well with no additional cost to the city or to the trust so uh that was something that I that we were looking out for we didn't want to have to pay extra to Monitor and track um and I don't think we quite have the internal capacity yet to do that and maybe we can build up to that one day um where we have the ability to like review and make sure that people are you know with the appropriate income level and verified or um in these units um but Chapa has great experience doing this with monitoring it uh they're the experts really and for them to be able to do it at no additional cost I think is a great win for us um so in total now um if we all agree uh to mirror the Commonwealth Builder process it'll be a combined lottery for 20 units um including the two that you know our subsidy added to it uh 14 of those 20 units would have a local preference um the details of that local preference are broken down a little bit um per the city council's special uh permit for this involving um some seniors and Veteran preferences but that's within the local preference so this senior piece veterans piece and then local residents piece um and then for the other six the local preference folks still could get those units so they just be would be in a general lottery pool with anyone else that applies who meets the eligibility um the rough intention these things are always fluid uh would be to launch the lottery June 1st um to have an info session in mid July to close the lottery at the end of July July 31st and then conducted at some point in August monitored and overseed by Chapa so they would have the um be monitored that as the developer was doing it um so that's the plan if the board approves I think that it's you know obviously there's certain things that maybe if I had my ideal maybe one or two things might be different maybe the length of the dude restriction perhaps if we could have pulled the two units out completely and made them both like a local preference I think that lots of things that maybe could be but all things considered um after talking this through with staff and kind of going through it with our consultant and everything this is a plan that works and it means that hopefully in August there'll be a lottery and people can move in this fall and we'll be able to kind of celebrate together and know that we were able to contribute to two uh families or households here you know being able to access home ownership in the community um so at this point all we would really need to do um and I'll put it up for a vote is to authorize that plan um and then from there um you we would you know work with you and I on the financial piece to auth to draft a letter authorizing the transfer of the funds to for our uh share of the subsidy and then we just keep folks posted um within the board on the lottery process and timing um so with that I'd like to um yeah question so they're only D restricted for 15 years person wins it now they're into it they the 250 or whatever so they they've already couple hundred thousand you know plus at the end of the 15 years if they were to resell are they entitled to that difference in money then between if they sell it for 500,000 and say it appreciates a little bit and the 250 that they're they're kind of buying it for are they getting that 250,000 so the way it works under Commonwealth Builder is that it's a um um 5050 split essentially of the proceeds between the owner that sells it and then the um whoever did the subsidy am I ex stating that correctly Lena so if it if it was one of the actual Commonwealth Builder units that money would go back to um Commonwealth Builder program and if it was The Unit 102 or 202 that we subsidized half of the proceeds from the sale would come back to the affordable housing trust at that point at the time of the sale in effect get that money back maybe or a portion of it all right that sounds yeah so I mean the the like I said as a general rule my personal preference would be for board to create uh units in perpetuity for purpose of the subsidized housing inventory but a positive sum benefit of this is you know the the household that wins they build some equity which is nice but also it's not fully appreciating to them there's also funds that come back you know if the value of this skyrockets over the next 15 years a modest proceed comes back to the trust in the future for use for you know future housing so um that piece of is a positive compared to if there was no no Rider on it at all you know and all the proceeds kind of went to a private um benefit so that's a a appropriate concern I'm glad you asked the question but that's how that works other questions so with that I'd um like to ask unanimous consent uh to follow the Commonwealth Builder process uh as you laid out um and move forward um with that plan for the combined Lottery monitored by Chapa do I hear any objection seeing none so ordered congratulations everyone this is a significant accomplishment you know I think um we've done a few interesting things as a board so far but this is obviously the first time that we've directly been able to subsidize the new creation of a a home ownership opportunity in the city so it's something to be really proud of so and I know that we've been working on it for months and going through the ins and outs and the finances and the details how it works so appreciate everyone's um thoughts on that all right um the next item on the agenda um under kind of our standing items um is related to the home repairs proposal um that Habitat for Humanity did their pitch and we talked about you know looking at that as an option and we talked about um doing our own thing I think that with some of the other things that we have on the agenda coming up for you know for June and with Salem the street um you know we don't want to rush into this I think we want to take some time to think through it so I don't I would not want us to make a decision on this yet um My Hope Is that we can form and if anyone's interested and wants to join this a subcommittee um you know for purposes of complying with open meeting law that can meet separately and have a conversation both about the merits of the habitat proposal as well as the merits of doing a different concept for home repairs um I'm in the process of setting up a follow-up meeting with Barry Weiss from Habitat to bring to him some of the questions that you guys might have if you want to formulate those um but I would like to know if there's folks that would be interested in participating in a subcommittee on that being on those types of calls well I would for first of all and second of all last week we our last meeting we had some concerns with their proposal that we voiced in terms of how much of the funds will be going to overhead or if there's going to be a syst and uh supporting their cause or even just to particulars I think Matt brought up very interesting points about how specific we need to sort of see their breakdown of funds have they followed up on the I don't so we haven't had a chance to have a follow up on some of the questions yet um my hope is to set up that meeting for next week and I think that you know if we could get three members or so of the board to join in that meeting um and I'm going to not to exclude anyone else I'm going to ime mat because I think that you had a you know an eye for the finances there um and I think I I believe we'd be able to under the rules have up to four people you know without violating open meeting law so is there someone else that would want to participate in that as well all right Lori um so I am going to ask that we um unanimous consent to authorize that four-person subcommittee to explore the home repair's proposal uh do I have any objection so just so folks so the next steps on that are going to be whether you're on this subcommittee or not put together your thoughts your questions um things that we want to prioritize and explore when it comes to this concept um specific questions for Habitat including the ones that we talked about at the meeting our subcommittee will bring up when we set up a meeting with Barry um to kind of drill into the details I'm also going to spend some time next week talking with the mayor's team about this because I know that you know this is a doing something like this is a priority for them we want to make sure that everyone's vision is aligned I want to talk to the council president as well um councel cogliandro and get Council perspective so um those are the next steps there on that and we can move towards you know trying to come to a more concrete plan um in the next couple of months any questions or feedback on that piece oh terrific um excellent um I have just as a standing item and there may be no real significant update since we just met two weeks ago but with loranda here tax title properties any kind of updates on where where those are in the pipeline I do have several updates um but I did want to start first with the down payment assistance just because it will pair and be more of a priority as we approach the lottery process so we we finally signed the contract for the state earmark to Pilot a down payment assistance program the state gave us 20 $5,000 and I think that um at this point like it would be good to think about if the trust would like to match that um since I looked at some of the studio prices for the 70% Ami range the down payment assistance would be $8,000 about $88,500 at like the the smallest unit so and then the two bedrooms um the highest down pay to put down would be like about 13,000 so if we can if you can match with an additional 25,000 we could be able to adequately support um potential firsttime home buyers through that condo Lottery and so would your thought or preference on that be that we would match it for purpose of it would still be we'd have five you know qualified folks but then we'd be able to do 10 10 to each in addition to what they'd be able to get from this State I think so I I'm I personally would be on board with that um I want to hear other people's thoughts cuz obviously there's different ways we could go about it but I agree that that would allow us to make the money go further I agree that it's it's great to do that and would like to do that are we able to earmark the 25,000 for a specific property for a down payment assistance program or do we have to open it up to all in in in review applications that that way can we Air Market for a specific development so well we could but the way that I envisioned and I think my understanding and you can all tell me if this is not how you saw it the down payment assistance program was not going to be for a specific property it was going to be an open we were going to develop an application and we have a consultant Liz Russ just you know folks that can help us develop that application uh we'd put it out publicly you know in the paper online Etc and anyone who's a rever resident uh who's firsttime home buyer you meets that residency guideline could apply within a certain window if we got more than five applicants uh then we would have to conduct a lottery but if we got five or fewer in a certain time period Then they would you know just be those ones that submitted it and we'd be able to uh put in that um that assistance so that is the way that these programs have kind of run in similar in other communities that have done them and so the thought would be you know the five came in from the state per person times five and if we put in 25 from the trust's funds which frankly interest alone has kind of helped allow us to maybe to be able to afford this year uh then we could do 10 you know per recipient does that make sense does that answer your question I'll make the motion then put $25,000 up to the to the uh time payment assistance program I second that um all in favor any opposed all right yes I have a question uh this is the same this is part of the massachusett Hill uh healthy homb this is a state earmark grant that we that the city of Rivier solely received to run a pilot program for down payment assistance yeah so oh sorry um uh Senator Edwards and representative jino um and turko you know asked for this to be included in the state budget as an ear Mark last year uh for the money to specifically be earmarked for the affordable housing trust fund for the purpose of doing a first-time home buyer down payment assistance program so we must use the state money for that um and then it's our option to add our additional affordable housing trust funds that we already had on top of that does that answer your question y awesome other questions about that and I have it on the record that we approved this unanimously is I want to make sure that I didn't miss anything terrific thank you other updates yeah now we can move on to the tax title properties so I shared with you all Matt I think if you can just share with Dean for today um I'll give you an extra copy after the meeting we received a um feasibility uh report from DM bro Lop who's the city's uh legal counil on potential affordable developments of uh some vacant parcels that were derived from a foreclosure taxing foreclosure list so out of the six the report concluded that five out of the six properties are potentially buildable with the necessary Z zoning relief to construct on under um undersized lots and for additional zoning relief whether that be through setbacks or parking um you can read this um in your spare time more but the it has a summary of each of the six properties the only one that was um deemed as unbuildable was uh two lots on uh neponsit Street uh and the reason that it's un unbuildable is that it's too undersized to qualify for the pre-existing vacant lot under our zoning you would need 3,000 however the law area is 2,00 400 sare ft and so with these properties Tom and I are planning to prepare a request for proposals package to be able to um request to dispose of the properties for affordable development so we're looking through the evaluation criteria um a highly desirable proposal would be one that would um offer 100% affordable housing these lots are very small but we're hoping that we can get single families two families and some of them terrific and I know that that'll be an internal process and we'll have a we'll have time to review both this letter and then the RFP as that goes through and then obviously I think I'm speaking for everyone when I say that once that RFP starts to come together that we we as a board would be interested in figuring out ways that we can be involved with and support that process um for sure just quick question is there is there a funding request proposal that you're going to what's the actual ask the ask would be the actual Lots so the applicants could apply for more than one of these prop these five properties we're also looking to hire a real estate uh agent to be able to assist with the proposals and marketing the the lots and and the properties on red fin Zillow um and answering questions for the proposers okay when they say it's 100% affordable is the same like the the buildings that on Bish street that is 100% affordable this is for like a housing uh yeah this would be for a smaller affordable housing Construction so we're hoping it's just for seniors or is for females we haven't set any preferences yet but we're thinking of affordable housing so at least 80% of the area median income affordability in rever okay other questions on um the tax title properties I I Envision that you know this will be another thing that we'll want to drill into and form a subcommittee and start talking through but it's just preliminary at the moment so I encourage everyone to review this and if you think of questions about it um or thought or frankly preferences that we should be suggesting to Lara and Tom as they craft the RFP fire them away um either at one of these meetings or just reach out you know because I think we all have a voice here and um we've all spent a lot of time thinking about some of the needs and preferences for affordable housing in the community so we will have valuable insight to provide as the RFP gets put together laor I just have one structural question to ask what's the time frame you're going to put together this RFP and how we can sort of manage it with the other things that we're looking at like Habitat for Humanity and that sort of thing good question so I'm I was given like a twoe window to help start working and drafting the RFP but we're really open to suggestions um if any of you have worked on a request for proposal like this happy to talk to but we're also sorry and then we're looking at releasing the request for proposals bit at the end of this month or early June thank you other question questions for Lena just to be clear like what what does that RFP entail is that like a building plan and costs so I think it's a description of each of the five lots and what they yeah like a design proposal um a financial feasibility study on how they plan to subsidize or if they even plan to subsidize so some of the people that we can give a courtesy notice to the request of proposals are like habitat of humanity um maybe people that work with smaller developments in the affordable housing space got it other questions no well thank you these are all exciting updates so appreciate it anything else from the city Corner that you wanted to share one last thing is just a heads up that for July um our conservation meeting scheduled for July 10th so just be aware okay that we're on for the second week of July at 7 at 7 so I'm going to make a um motion that we move our meeting for July up to 6 o'clock so that way we can run it from 6:00 to 7 and still have it here do I ask can I ask for unanimous consent any objection seeing none um just make a note of that July meeting 6 PM preon excellent um so the next kind of semi and I think last Super substantive item for the for this one is our June planning sessions with JM gston you know to follow up on the meeting we had a couple weeks ago where our Consultants are going to kind of talk through the vision budgeting process etc for the affordable housing trust um we have those session set up and you should have all received the invites for June for the 6th and the 13th um as we discussed for the 6th H having the meeting here the goal is to bring in some outside folks as well within the community outside of the trust but within the you know interested parties um that'll bring something to the table that we want to hear their input and their thoughts um on planning for the next 5 years of the affordable housing trust um obviously that invitation is open to everyone right it'll be public posted public meeting but I wanted to personally you know as a board reach out to specific groups and folks to invite them to join us and here's the list I came up with and I want to see if folks have anyone else that they want to add so I have rev Housing Authority staff and board um our legislative delegation our elected officials so our city council school committee mayor and the mayor's office uh the mayor's transition team uh which has wrapped up its work but I think they did a lot of talk and thinking and And discussing affordable housing so i''d like to invite them so that includes folks like J Ash the former chair of um economic development for the state and former mayor uh Paul broer of Melrose uh some folks that have that outside expertise um as well rev Housing Coalition tnd um and Chapa are three organizations that I thought would make sense to extend invitations to as well I wanted to see if this um other groups or individuals or folks that we want to invite to that June 6th session obviously feel free to suggest them now but if you think of anyone you know between now and June 6 feel free to let me know as well want to open that up any thoughts Joe I have a quick question yes oh sorry is that Claire hi yeah sorry um is the June 6th meeting going to be an open public meeting um so it it's a public meeting in the sense that it's open to the public but it's not like a public forum like the housing production plan Forum where the purpose of it is yeah does that make sense I yes I just wanted to make sure I advertised it correctly yeah um so I'll advertise it as a joint meeting between a special meeting of the affordable housing trust fund and that will enable us all to be present and discuss yep exactly and so I know that we have folks that watch um and I'm not even saying that factiously I appreciate the feedback that we get the emails and and commentary the people watch on TV which is great uh folks are always welcome to come here and participate in the meetings if they'd like um in person you know we we have a window for that if anyone wants to add their own comments or feedback so um terrific any other thoughts on those June coordination meetings or folks that we should be inviting seeing none uh and then I wanted to just mention cuz I want to keep them on the agenda as standing items although I don't think we have anything on them yet but I want to just keep keep them on folks mind as we think about we already are tackling a few big projects but we should think about these as well um one is thinking about what rent own programs might look like and like exploring other cities or folks that do them in ways that we might be able to look at doing something like that because I think that's a really Innovative interesting idea um then another is looking at private fundraising and and grant opportunities that we can look at as a board as a way to supplement um what we get from the city um I think that and actually right now I don't know if you I know that as part of the budgeting process for the year we're looking at someone to oversee grant writing for the city who would be I believe positioned within the planning and Community Development Department if that works out is that is that TBD got it um um but it is I'm not making that up that is something that we're trying to do as a city is that right and I think that my thought would be we should hold off on kind of creating a strategy on pursuing grants until that person's in place if they are in place because they'd be the right person to spearheaded and kind of have that knowledge of what opportunities are available and then we could do our nudging on kind of where we'd like to see it go um but obviously if other folks have ideas or thoughts we're always happy to pursue them um same with private fundraising like we could look into things like doing a fundraiser doing a Gayla doing a you know we can explore these types of things so noodle on it um anything on those items before I move to one last thing okay so the last thing I want to do is we've done a lot in the last few months which I think is really exciting uh We've sparked the additional 18 the the initial 18 units of the Commonwealth Builder project we subsidized the additional two to make it 20 we've um engaged with habitat and looked into the senior home repairs program we've supported the work of the housing production plan you know we chipped in some finances and some support to dig through that and they did their survey and got some interesting feedback on it um we got this earmark to do um a firsttime home buyer down payment assistance program that's a lot to do in a few months which is really exciting and we're going to be doing this planning process so I would suggest that now is a good time for us to work on like a press release um to send out to local press and post through the mayor's office and Communications and such um about what we're up to you know kind of our what we've been doing as a board in key priorities I know that the journal does a great job covering the meetings anyway uh and put which is great we appreciate uh so with with folks permission what I'd like to do is put together an outline of things that I think should be included I'll send it around to folks for your feedback and then I'll work with the mayor's communication director on actually getting that drafted and I'd love to get something out for folks to be able to get some insight into what we do um anyone have any thoughts on things to include ways to go about that Etc um but I think that that's something that we should do in the next couple weeks any questions comments feedback I think you hit the right highlights so I I don't think there's much more that we've done but we've done a lot and it'll impact people's lives and we should get it out there it will and we will and I think we should all be really proud you know I think we've got a really diverse set of um expertise in the room which is cool you know people that can bring different perspectives and I think we've seen the fruits of that with the way we've put together uh some of our programs right it's um I think we've done our due diligence you know we've explored different ideas different ways of doing things and ultimately are coming to decisions that are going to be really helpful and and do what we can and impact what we can you know with the budget that we have so uh really grateful for everyone's hard work and I look forward to highlighting that with um some with the press release um in the next few weeks uh so with that um our next meetings will be those June um sessions uh the 6th and the 13th um if anyone has feedback um on folks we should invite Etc you know please feel free to send it along um and I will also be sure to update folks if there's any important changes or anything that happens with Salem Street uh but as of now I think our work is kind of done on that we just now it's over to you know chaper and our consultant and City staff to Monitor and we'll get to see that come come through but if that changes I'll let everyone know uh any other yeah yes sorry it's clear it's the voice of God while we are self- plugging with this uh press release I want to flag for everyone that I am still missing just a few bios for our website so please do not forget or else I will write something maybe made up about you so if you are missing one from the website please send me a little blurb terrific yes and thank you Claire for getting that up U and a shout out to Claire not only for having the BIOS on the website but also timely posting of the minutes and agendas um much much appreciated and we definitely uh want to get all of those up which we are required to do and we do but also some of the additional documents and things that she's uploaded to keep people you know keep the public posted about what we're doing so we appreciate that any other late items or thoughts or things for the greater good well I did promise that after the marathon last month and what I anticipate will be two long meetings next month this would be a brief one so I think that we are set to adjourn so do I have a motion to adjourn second any objection seeing none we'll see you in a couple weeks e