 we're going to get started. So good evening and welcome to the second discussion of our community conversation series for this year. This is Who Can Live Here? Who Decides and Why? That's tonight's panel discussion and it'll be focusing on Fair Housing in Arlington. This is hosted by the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Division and I'm Jill Harvey, the director of that division in the Department of Planning and Community Development. I'll be going over some ground rules and expectations for the night before introducing some of our guests and getting started. Additionally, I want to tell you know that closed captioning is available for this program so please use the CC icon at the bottom of your Zoom screen to enable it. I'd also just like to remind everyone that we do have a certain amount of time for this event so we'll be going from seven to nine so we will do our best to address any questions during the Q and A segment of this program which will take place in the later half of the discussion. We do ask that you use the Q and A box at the bottom of your Zoom screen versus using the chat but the chat will remain open and so with that please do keep in mind as well that the chat is being monitored and there is no tolerance for any unruly language so please use the Q and A box rather than the chat to submit questions and keep it a safe place for everyone. So I just want to pull up our ground rules for everyone to review. So right now during this session we all have the responsibility to respect and build on the strength that diversity provides. We will engage in polite constructive productive dialogue and feedback. We will respectfully disagree with each other unless you are a designated representative of an organization opinions are considered your own. When sharing a question please be short and to the point. We want to use this moment in space to take some time to allow for self-reflection and as always continue to take deep breaths because a lot of these topics that we do discuss during the community conversations can be really difficult. And so with that I would like to introduce Jennifer Rate who is Arlene Tins Director of Planning and Community Development. Jenny was instrumental in planning this event and she has 25 years of experience serving local and state government and nonprofit organizations focused on housing, community development, and community planning. And Jenny is a member of the Transit Matters Board, Brookline Housing Advisory Board, Metropolitan Area Planning Council Executive Committee, the Massachusetts Municipal Association, CHAPA Policy Leadership Council, and Fair Housing Committee, the American Planning Association, and APA Massachusetts Chapter of Legislative and Policy Officer. And Jenny is also serving as a Brookline Town Meeting Member. So I'd like to welcome Jenny to the screen to the screen I guess to continue with our introductions and opening for the night. Thank you so much Jill. Really appreciate being here this evening with everybody. I'm Jenny Rate. I'm the Director of Planning and Community Development for the town. It's my pleasure to provide a kickoff to this conversation tonight. I'm going to start by walking us through the past. Just a very brief introduction to things that happened in the past related to fair housing in Arlington, specifically related to organizing efforts that happened by the town of Arlington in the 1990s to establish a Fair Housing Advisory Committee which bloomed and blossomed into something very special for the town, including an organization that focused on affordable housing in partnership with the Housing Corporation for Arlington, which now is our local community development corporation that serves the town of Arlington and its communities. The Fair Housing Advisory Committee was focused primarily on promoting and implementing fair housing in Arlington by providing info, all kinds of information and services about regarding housing discrimination and other housing related issues to both current and prospective residents as well as realtors and landlords. Recognizing that there was a public issue related to fair housing as well as the private sectors issues related to fair housing. The group was instrumental in developing a fair and affirmative marketing plan that related to affordable housing units that were being developed at that time. They also then oversaw and were instrumental in being included in developing the inclusionary zoning bylaw once it was the year 2001, as well as coordination of other affordable housing efforts and the hiring of a staff person who worked in the Department of Planning and Community Development focused on housing. So Arlington's efforts related to fair housing really go back quite some time and it has been a consistent topic really throughout many decades. Even prior to the 1990s prior to the Fair Housing Advisory Committee being organized there were many social efforts that were the town was engaged in or leading or partnering with various community-based organizations on. Arlington evolved to have the Vision 2020 Committee which then is now considered the Envision Arlington Committee. We also developed and eventually adopted the Arlington Master Plan a housing production plan and many other things occurred to recognize that in order to be a more inclusive community we must take clear actions and continue to remove various barriers and through various methods methods to remove those barriers so that people can access our community and feel that they're included and involved. Creating an equitable community planning is really at the root of that. I see planning and community development as being key to that mission to achieve a more equitable community. Planning is significant in this regard because we also have a historic legacy of land use planning and zoning that has been a barrier to allowing people to come into various communities. Federal programs up through today have been also a component of that process of not allowing people into communities. And so much more work needs to be done. Of course we recognize that. This was one of the reasons why we decided to engage in the development of a Fair Housing Action Plan which you're going to hear a little bit about tonight from various panelists as well as our current housing plan development effort which we've been developing for the last few months and will continue to throughout the course of this year which will allow us to create some new strategies. There's an intersection between affordable housing and fair housing. As I mentioned that was the case in the 90s when these things were first being talked about in the community at a committee level and they continue today and you'll hear about that intersection tonight. We have so much more work to do and we're excited to start this conversation with all of you this evening and for now I'm going to turn it over to Judy and we'll be back a little bit later to answer your questions. Thank you so much. Jillian are you bringing up my slides? Great. Thank you. So as Jenny said I'm Judy Barrett and I'm going to be helping to moderate the panel this evening. I want to talk to you a little bit about the housing plan work that's currently underway and how that relates to the topic that we're going to be discussing this evening. And at the conclusion of my few slides here I will give you a brief introduction to our three panelists and then turn it over to the first speaker. So this is about kind of how fair housing and affordable housing come together to raise a lot of kind of mutually interesting and important questions. If I could have the next slide please. So Arlington has a fair housing plan. I confess that I prepared these slides yesterday and as I understand it the fair housing plan actually is in now but yesterday it was still to be delivered soon. So that effort was underway over the past year and it's going to benefit the housing plan that I and my colleagues are working on because a big part of the inquiry about affordable housing really has to do with with how price can regulate the demographics of a community. And so you know so you have the fair housing plan you will have the housing plan you're also a member of a group called the North Suburban Home Consortium which participates you know in a planning process every five years as well as each year on how federal home funds will be used. And so that's another type of housing plan the town has and of course there are others I happen to have the privilege of working on the master plan so I'm familiar with that and so people might wonder like why do we have so many plans. Next slide please. Because housing affordability which is really the focus of of our effort affects the choices that people can make about where they will live and about where whether they'll rent or own a home what the choices will be in that regard the kinds of housing they will be able to choose from the schools that their children will attend if they are if they have children and then what people can afford to pay for food and for healthcare and for other basic needs when housing prices are really very stressful on household budgets other things give way and sometimes it's those other basic needs that have to go so that people can hang on to the shelter that they have. Next slide please. So just a little bit of background and I know that our panelists tonight will have a lot more to say about this so I'm not going to go into great history. Jenny of course covered the situation in Arlington back to the 1990s and I just want to point out that actually it was 1968 it was a week after Martin Luther King was assassinated that the Federal Fair Housing Act was passed by Congress and that act prohibits discrimination based on race and color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability. So those are the umbrella categories that are protected under federal law but because we have state laws that also address fair housing there are additional considerations that a fair housing plan would have and that certainly the affordable housing plan will also be taking into account. Next slide please. In Massachusetts we have certain constitutional protections that guarantee equality based on sex, race, color, and national origin. So there's a lot of kind of relationship between the state constitutional protections and our federal law which of course is anchored in the civil rights protections of our U.S. Constitution. Next slide please. Under state law there are certain things that are just categorically prohibited. One is of course housing discrimination simply not allowed. The umbrella statute is chapter 151b. Discrimination and public accommodation is also not allowed and then certainly discrimination based on disability through zoning is not allowed. So there are certain provisions in the zoning act in Massachusetts that bar communities from discrimination based on the needs of people with disabilities. Next slide please. Chapter 151b the Massachusetts anti-discrimination law protects many groups. In addition to those that are protected by federal law we have the other populations that are listed on this slide. Gender identity, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, familial status, source of income. These are all in addition to the federal act. So again when we're looking at issues around community demographics and who is able to live or not able to live in a community we look at all of these groups and their relative presence in the community and factors that might contribute to perhaps why they may be underrepresented relative to towns around them or throughout the rather the larger metro area. Next slide please. So much of our work and on the housing plan is going to be around a needs analysis. It's the heart of any housing plan and so we will look at things such as housing cost burden which is this concept that has to do with how much of your income on a monthly basis are you having to pay for housing and are affected classes such as those listed in the previous slides are they more affected than perhaps others? Looking at perhaps concentrations if they exist well these are sort of standards that anybody looks at in a housing needs assessment is you know are there concentrations of poverty? Are there you know are there patterns of integration or segregation in the community on the basis of race and other factors? Based on where affordable housing exists is there equal access throughout the community to various community assets schools stores churches etc. You know community kind of service institutions? Is there a disproportionate housing need based on race color religion sex familial status national origin or handicap? And so that is this concept of perhaps some groups are more affected than others and we look to the data and to interviews and other things that we learn about the community to understand whether that disproportionate housing need exists and then we also look at what the community's fair housing enforcement and outreach capacity is of course naturally since the town has a freshly completed fair housing plan will rely on that document a lot to understand the last point on this slide. When the community doesn't have that we kind of have to ask you know on our own but we have a wonderful source now for that but but then the less we look at these considerations. Next slide please. We will ask ourselves and our interviewees in the town and others you know just a shortage of affordable housing effect some households more than others and a little bit of an insight into perhaps some statistics in Arlington that are interesting. Black or African American households have the lowest median household income in your community and frankly in almost all of the surrounding communities. The median income of homeowners in Arlington is 1.9 times higher than that of your renters. White non-Hispanic homeowners outnumber minority homeowners 8 to 1 and the age of renter occupied housing in Arlington's area is generally quite old. About 68% of your rental renter occupied stock was built prior to 1980 so to a housing planner that matters to us because that suggests there may be a higher likelihood of some housing quality problems notably lead paint. Next slide please. Almost half of your housing units have three or more bedrooms but for renters it's just 16%. Renters with household incomes below $50,000 comprised about 26% of all renters about 82% of those lower income renters pay over 30% of their monthly income on housing costs so that's that concept of housing cost burden that I mentioned earlier. Housing affordability for people with disabilities would be especially challenging in your community. The average household income of householders with disabilities is $12,462 a year. They can afford $311.35 per month for rent so you know it gives you kind of a picture. If you think back to the slide where I showed those groups that are most protected under these anti-discrimination laws how these various preliminary findings about Arlington would suggest it does look like some households are more affected than others about the the shortage of affordable housing. Next slide please. This is just a picture of our regional data. I realize it might be difficult to see on your screen but it's basically a comparison of what Black and not next renters experience in the region not just Arlington but the sort of greater Boston area relative to to other populations. So for example Black householders who rent are likely to have at least 27% will be paying more than 50% of their income on housing costs. That is considered severe housing cost burden. That compares with you know 23% of the all-all households who rent and 21% of white. When you get into ownership you can see kind of a similar pattern that Black and Latinx households simply have a much greater incidence of housing cost burden at the severe level half their income going to housing as other groups. So it kind of underscores that the condition in Arlington is not unique it's part of a regional problem but of course that means that people from outside the community are also having would have also have difficulty choosing to live in Arlington and choosing to join your community and be your neighbors. Next slide please. So we have three panelists tonight all really esteemed people I'm not going to read their entire biographies those are of course on the invitation to the to the event this evening but I'll kind of go in the order that they're going to speak and just briefly summarize them and then I'm going to turn this over to Bob who will be the first panel of speaking. So Bob is a part-time lecturer at Tufts University's graduate program of urban and environmental policy and planning. He's active in a number of fair housing initiatives in the Boston area such as the Roxbury neighborhood council Madison park development corporation board of directors citizens housing planning excuse me citizens housing planning associations policy leadership council and many others and so we're very fortunate to have him join us this evening. Our second speaker after Bob will be Whitney Demeterious who is the director of housing engagement at citizens housing and planning association. She works with their municipal initiative program initiative engagement initiative pardon me her her mission in life is to change the local conversation about housing by empowering people who are most affected by the lack of affordable housing elevating housing choices for you know above the opposition often and then setting a stage for diverse and equitable local conditions. So she will be speaking after Bob and then our final panelist is Diane Glover from the director from the your housing and community development project. She is the director and so Diane is she has over 35 years of experience in public private and nonprofit sectors. So Diane and I have been in the business about the same amount of time. She provides legal assistance to nonprofit organizations and jurisdictions on fair housing housing advocacy housing development and so on. So we're very lucky to have all three of them but I think with that I'm going to turn it over to Bob as our first speaker and I will be timing everybody very carefully. I'll just warn all the panelists now you each have about 10 minutes to speak so I'm going to sign off now and Jillian will bring Bob up. Great Bob there you are the floor is yours. Okay well thank you very much and to the organizers of this event thank you very very much for your kind invitation. It's really a privilege and an honor to be a part of this panel and I will try to use mine my 10 minutes that I have very judiciously. I want to break my comments into two major parts the rest we can we can get to in the Q&A section I'm sure. First is the historical background behind what we call affirmatively furthering fair housing. I had a chance to take a look at Arlington's new Fair Housing Action Plan which was hot off the press I guess it was today and I had a chance to review parts of it is an excellent document. I would commend that to everybody's reading but one of the key points I want to make in my presentation is that this Fair Housing Plan just didn't come out of nowhere. There is a long legislative and regulatory history behind affirmatively furthering fair housing it is not just a concept we'd like to throw out there it is a provision within our Fair Housing Act. Section 3608 of the Fair Housing Act stipulates that the Secretary of HUD has an obligation to affirmatively further fair housing and that that obligation is extended to all HUD grantees by way of a number of statutes particularly the 1974 Housing and Community Development Act and this is very important because when a municipality a city a town or a public housing authority receives funding from HUD they take on this obligation to affirmatively further fair housing which means to be proactive in your enforcement and your compliance around the Fair Housing Act. Recently HUD has reinstated the affirmatively furthering fair housing regulation for about a decade there was a lot of advocacy a lot of pressure put on HUD to really make use of this particular mechanism to improve fair housing enforcement throughout the country a number of national organizations lobbied HUD the General Accounting Office of the federal government said to HUD you're really not doing much with your analyses of impediments to fair housing choice you need to do more with that and so finally during the Obama administration particularly after a big lawsuit in West Chester County uh the Obama administration started taking affirmatively furthering seriously and in July of 2015 came out with a new regulation those of us who are close to this issue realize that yes there was an attempt by the previous administration whose name will go unmentioned to undermine affirmatively furthering fair housing but since the Biden administration has come into office they have reinstated that regulation as a matter of fact today is the deadline for comments on their draft regulation and by the 31st of July we will have a new final rule and the reason that HUD worked very hard to get that final rule in place is because a number of municipalities and housing authorities this summer were getting ready to send in their action plans to HUD and HUD wanted to make sure that as they filled out those documents and those action plans that they were doing so with a regulation that was properly constructed legally and that was consistent with the Fair Housing Act now there's a couple of aspects about affirmatively furthering fair housing that are important for us as planners and people concerned about affordable housing and housing production to keep in mind affirmatively furthering fair housing is a tool to fight discrimination to dismantle segregated housing markets and to create inclusive communities so first and foremost it is a planning tool secondly it is a contractual agreement that HUD and its grantees enter into in exchange for securing funding Arlington received CDBG funds home funds um and probably other funding sources from HUD when you sign your documents and your contracts to receive that money one of the things that those contracts stipulate is that you will uphold the Fair Housing Act and that you will affirmatively further fair housing so I can't emphasize enough that cities and towns and public housing authorities have a contractual agreement with HUD to do this it is a powerful planning tool because it if it is done properly it impacts every phase every phase of housing production zoning master planning and Arlington has engaged in all of those activities and the Fair Housing Act makes it very very clear that any and all activities in the public sector through federal funding but in the private sector generally across the board with without even funding even be involved that the Fair Housing Act applies to all of those activities so whether you're pursuing a very aggressive and expansive housing production plan or a very moderate one or one that is very slow at its pace in terms of growth and development whichever strategy you as a town pursue the Fair Housing Act is applicable to any and all of those situations it's also a very important intersectional document um housing is central to a person's life to a family to a household it is central to everything we do and not only did they put out a new affirmatively furthering fair housing regulation but along with it they also put for an assessment tool as a guide to cities and towns on how to write an assessment of fair housing and that assessment tool was very intersectional how does housing impact public health education transportation and likewise how do all those factors impact your housing so all of these issues in our urban planning have to be brought together in order to make these plans highly highly effective so I would highly recommend that people not only read the Fair Housing Plan that's hot off the press in Arlington but also take a look at the assessment tool and the regulation that HUD has just put forward a permittingly furthering fair housing is also a reminder to focus on our protected classes the litmus test for any of these activities and the key question we should ask is how do any of our policies practices programs how do they affect our protected classes you just heard a review a demographic review of the situation in Arlington with regard to our protected classes so in any housing strategy that is pursued that question has to be asked the question that we asked for this panel discussion was who gets to decide who gets to live where well the answer to that question is people have a right to live anywhere they want that's what the Fair Housing Act was passed to ensure that people have equality of access to housing whatever they choose to live and if their rights are violated in any way that they have legal recourse to protect their civil rights and that leads me to the the last characteristic of affirmatively furthering fair housing which is it's a mechanism for fair housing enforcement and compliance in my opinion we need to expand our fair housing infrastructure and many of us are taking steps to see that that's going to happen in the state of Massachusetts and it's very important that we get the support of our state government in support of expanding fair housing infrastructure unless we have very vigorous enforcement fair housing begins to fall by the wayside the last thing I'll say I know that in Arlington there has been a great debate about land use and zoning one of the experiences we had recently in Boston we just completed our assessment of fair housing in January of this year after about five years of negotiations with our city government but one of the great victories that came out of it was legislation put forward by Lydia Edwards who was the city councilor representing the north end in east Boston and her amendment to our zoning code was truly historic it was the first time that a municipality anywhere in the United States put fair housing language principles and values into its zoning code and that's going to be very significant for the city of Boston it means now that every zoning decision that's made whether we're amending the zoning code whether we're granting conditional use permits or variances or reviewing projects for compliance must be seen through the lens of fair housing how do those decisions affect the protected classes in our city so I think I will stop there I have much more in my notes that I wanted to cover but I think it would be best if we pick those up during the Q&A session thank you I believe the next speaker is my great colleague a fair housing colleague Whitney Demetrius Whitney the floor is yours thank you so much Bob I'm so glad to be following you in your remarks especially because I always learn something when I hear you speak so thank you so much Bob happy to be following you because then there's not much left for me to cover I can kind of skim through some of my slides here so again I want to thank the organizers for allowing me to be in the space with you all today I'm excited to talk with you all in this Arlington community conversation so the next slide I just want to talk a little bit about who is Chapa and what do we do and please let me know if you're having issues at all seeing me let me know in the chat but I'm not sure if it's working on my end but I'll continue our mission at Chapa Citizens Housing and Planning Association is really to encourage the production and preservation of housing that is affordable to low and moderate income families and individuals to foster diverse and sustainable communities through planning and community development right so we advocate for opportunity the idea of expanding access to housing and then certainly to develop the field on the next slide I'll talk a little bit about what all this has to do with each other in correlation to the work right so equity access and inclusion housing choice can you afford to live here right so not only can you afford to live here monetarily these are the questions that we're sort of asking as we approach this work but also how can you afford to live in a community in every other aspect of the word right can you afford to live here what are you giving up what do you come across what are the obstacles in that sense right and so equity access and inclusion as my colleagues here on the panel have also talked about really overlap with health education jobs healthy foods as well as with housing right so these inequities that we see are really a result of deliberate and intentional realities right and so we see that in zoning and restrictive covenants and segregation and Jim Crow laws redlining exclusionary zoning over discrimination right all of these things but really reversing those impacts that we see must also be as intentional and as deliberate right so re-examining local preference affirmative marketing plans housing as reparations eviction moratoriums inclusionary zoning local fair housing committees and fair housing plans like we alluded to are you all like doing here in Arlington analysis of impediments diversifying your housing stock right to bring in more diversity in homes and in people and creating certainly welcoming communities and so I'll continue with on the next slide to really talk a little bit more about you know this in terms of housing matters right housing matters back in 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was was issued and for housing matters now housing matters now we've seen that in the last year as well with this pandemic or the certainly we've seen these correlations and been in these conversations but housing matters then and it matters now the next slide we'll talk a little bit about I won't get into the specifics of the protected classes right where my colleagues have talked about that previously but I think what's important to note here in terms of protective classes is a few things one that everyone is a member of a protected class right so why do we care about this work why do we care about their housing how do we get folks to lean in in terms of the interest of this work is really to recognize that everyone is a member of a protected class and so again in terms of that these protections I wanted to make sure that I know what I often do in these trainings is that it's an actual and perceived right so whether it is actually your religion or not like the actual perceived if you have discriminated been discriminated against on these various protected statuses you're covered so I wanted to make sure that we raise that as well in the space so some of what I've been charged to do in our conversation here together is to talk a little bit about what chaffa has sort of taken on and its work in our policy work right and so on the next slide we want to make sure that we kind of talk about how we envision this in terms of what's what happens federally right so the former administration really had a rescinding of the affirmatively furthering for a housing rule and this idea of really wanting to bring things back to how things are and to you know enjoy your life as it is in the suburbs right and so we're happy to see you the next slide we won't spend too much time on this slide but in the next slide we're happy to see that in the under the Biden administration there has been a revisioning right a redressing of building back better and fair housing certainly back in january of this year the administration issued a memo of redressing the nation's federal and the federal government's history of discriminatory housing practices and policies right and doing a real working and examining what needs to be done to undo some of what happened in the former administration the next slide you'll see I sort of outlined some of what that memo included in terms of reviewing the administration's efforts to undercut affirmatively furthering for housing and disparate impact liability to examine the effects of the 2020 rule disparate impact to examine the effects of the amending of the discriminatory effect standards the head secretary to also examine the effects of preserving community and neighborhood choice rule as well so as bob our colleague has mentioned in addition to that more recently they have reissued the affirmatively furthering for housing rule in its interim form and we'll be seeing that in its final form soon as he mentioned the deadline being today for the comments there so excited to see that happening and being reinstated however despite who might be in our federal administration one of the things that chapa has been really thinking through thoroughly is how do we have something on the state level right that sort of gets at these issues despite what's happening federally right despite if the rule federally is rescinded or not what are the obligations that we have on the state level certainly much of this is motivated by as bob mentioned a great counselor at Lydia Edwards and the community advisory committee and Boston who has linked affirmatively furthering with zoning we see the the city of Boston we see Arlington right putting together their own for housing plans but what does it mean for other cities and towns for them to do something affirmatively as well so on the next slide we'll outline some of our chapa for housing legislative agendas so we have some of these three bills one on exclusionary zoning the second again affirmatively furthering for housing and then lastly a fair housing disparate impact standard and so the next slide I'll talk a little bit more about each one of those and our exclusionary zoning rule it is to act promoting for housing by preventing discrimination against affordable housing right so you don't want to build this particular development because it will overcrowd the schools like what does that mean in terms of familial status discrimination right and so certainly Massachusetts has high levels of residential segregation restrictive local zoning and permitting and the like but this is something to get ahead of that I know my time is winding so I'll fly through the remainder of these slides and I believe these slides may be available to you guys afterwards on the next slide here I'll talk a bit about affirmatively furthering right this will allow for a statewide duty to affirmatively further for a housing we've also as I mentioned we look to the work that City Council Edwards did we looked at what the state of California has done in creating an affirmatively furthering for housing standards statewide but really to address these sort of these similar issues the next slide we are looking at the disparate impact standard to establish a fair housing disparate impact standard which despite what the intent is if there is an impact on protected status individuals then you can bring a claim for it so certainly wanted to make sure we included that as well I'll fly through I'll try make my time is winding down the next few slides but really this idea that your zip code should not determine your future right and there are many things to consider in much of this but we understand that it's historical biases are really baked into the communities that we love and it's great that Arlington has a plan it has an action plan because if you have no plan then you plan to fail you you plan to repeat history and so I really want to applaud the work that's being that's happening here in Arlington and really this idea that where you choose to live you can go to the next slide but where you choose to live is one thing right Bob talked about like fair housing this idea fair housing is that you're able to choose where you want to live but it's you're able to live there if you can afford to live there and so how do you get how do you get past that issue in terms of access you must think about affordability and how do you expand this idea of different types of housing diversity so you can create open communities so your community can actually be open you can say oh you can live here but you just have to be able to make you know six figures in order to do so and so there's a barrier there so larger context of racial equity and fair housing as far as transportation schools gateways to wealth access to healthy food all of this that which we talked about and then I think lastly I just have a few more slides but I'll just talk just these are just talking about sort of what you can do and how you all can get involved past what you are able to do here in Arlington and so I'll I'll end there and allow for my colleagues to continue I'm happy to be able to turn it over to Diane we'll talk a little bit more about fair housing in Arlington and I'm looking forward to the Q&A thank you I'm actually unhappy to go after both of you because you guys were so good and covered so much great things I'm Diane Glauber from the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law which is a national civil rights organization located in Washington DC and you might wonder what I'm doing in Arlington in fact we work across the country including several jurisdictions in mass in Massachusetts and having read and produced a number of fair housing plans I think we've written about 25 of them I have to say that this is one of the best for the reason that there is such an ownership of past issues and such a desire to correct the past and to as was discussed affirmatively for their fair housing I'm going to touch on some highlights of the plan I hope you read it it takes a while but in lieu of that I will breeze through the these slides to discuss what some of the key aspects of the plan and then look forward to questions I just wanted to point out a few data points that surprised me so only five percent of Arlington households receive public assistance for housing which is also often called a housing choice voucher which is quite low in comparison and Arlington is very much predominantly white as you probably know and to that end there is a real barrier for people that are in these protected classes from moving to Arlington and in some cases staying in Arlington there's some we looked at some of the fair housing complaints and a lot are disability and children related complaints I would say around the country the number one complaint is service animals which has been a very topical conversation in the news to no one's surprise housing is predominantly single family and any multifamily housing has to go through a number of hoops and it's currently only permitted on nine percent of the land which is really surprising and as massachusetts in january passed a number of very progressive housing related laws and Arlington will need to comply with them so we can discuss that in a minute if we could go the next slide and the next one so the plan is broken up into sections and this one is about sort of the education enforcement of fair housing laws it's a shame that there's a fair housing organization in Boston closed its doors recently so there aren't there isn't a FIP which which is a HUD program that that provides testing and enforcement in this area although the state does have have a program as the human and also I would say that the law school Suffolk law school has a program so because that there's probably a need to do far more outreach and education on fair housing laws so first of all Arlington is passing a resolution that makes that commitment which is great and we are you know undertaking public discussions on housing like we are doing right now the the town leadership boards commissions and nonprofits and real estate professionals also need some education and training a lot of discrimination is a result of real estate professionals and they are not always in sync with the law so that those are really important education opportunities okay so this one is really more wide sweeping than I you know let's on because in the plan again I'm highlighting but in the plan there's a whole section how can we change our government structures to address fair housing concerns which is very progressive and very unusual I might add so one of them is to add this housing working group to the Arlington Human Rights Commission to focus on housing which is there currently is not that focus and then changing the complaint to driven code enforcement system to one with regular proactive inspections and the reason this one is so important is because there is such a fear of retribution and if you have a complaint driven code enforcement process you have to call somebody to come out the landlord may know it's you especially if it's a smaller multifamily unit and they may may want to kick you out as a result or other retribution so that's why this is so important and then institute an equity impact assessment for each item that the town on on housing and community development so that means this equity analysis will go far beyond here's the plan and we're going to call it a day for another three to five years so this means that is sort of bringing that fair housing lens into all the activities as it relates to funding and programs and new developments so it probably is not a surprise that zoning and fair housing are inextricably linked we as a civil rights organization have filed a number of zoning complaints because of exclusionary zoning which as I think it was previously mentioned prevents affordable housing by requiring minimum lot sizes let's say an acre per lot is an example of a more egregious zoning issue but there are a number of zoning laws on the books that basically provide an impediment to developing housing by developers so one great great idea is to allow the duplex development as of right so the reason as of right is so important is that as a bright means you don't have to go through a process of approvals that can be somewhat arbitrary sometimes capricious and could lead to decisions that may not be in keeping with the the actual situations for example environmental reviews that are very like unnecessary if you if you have an existing unit for example or other ways to get a lot of I'm sure you've heard the term nimby but nimby opposition so as of right is a really important concept in zoning and to that end to allow duplexes where there have been historically duplex and three family townhouse and multifamily housing in districts meant for them and consider as a right developments that are 100 affordable housing this massachusetts goes a long way with its 40 b program to allow sort of some zoning challenges to allow for multifamily housing but the facts the city is the town is looking at it on a more local basis is great okay you know the reason prices are so expensive is that there aren't that many units available the need far exceeds the demand and therefore there is a mismatch so more housing would bring in more affordable housing so there is an inclusionary zoning requirement and it would be the town is looking at ways to make it more robust and to be used more frequently there also is a local preference policy but again that doesn't affirmatively further fair housing when you're trying to get people that normally couldn't come to arlington because of the barriers we talked about to actually be able to live there there's clearly a regional housing supply it's not just arlington and that's why it's important to have that collaboration across jurisdictions but it's important for arlington do its fair share and then prioritize family size units there seems to be a lot of single family maybe one bedroom apartments it's it's great for people with disabilities and seniors but there are I think only one affordable there's one affordable housing project for families that have adequate you know size like two bedrooms plus and there is always a need for more of affordable family size units okay so there here are some examples where the town could use its own resources by looking at its tax exemption system and maybe applying to income eligible members of protected classes look at alternative funding resources such as housing bonds that have been used quite a bit in california and elsewhere and offer grants or low interest loans to reach for more accessible units in historic housing because you do have an older housing stock okay so without getting in the weeds there is a way for arlington to look at having higher payments for voucher holders allowing landlords to have higher rent and housing voucher recipients paying a third of their income of rent so it wouldn't impact them by having more small area fair market rents instead of looking at the entire region the entire boston region you could look at a much more targeted targeted census tracts where the rents are higher than some of the areas in boston for example um look at eliminating rental application fees for voucher holders i've heard many stories not in arlington but others who have been voucher holders enticed to apply for units where they have no interest in renting to them and paying all these fees massachusetts does have a source of income income discrimination law that requires landlords to accept housing choice vouchers but we know firsthand that that is not always the case and um landlords often screen out for everything we've seen landlords screen out for arrests where there's been no convictions um and very minor misdemeanors that occurred five 10 20 years ago so there is guidance that HUD has on criminal background screening that that landlords should follow okay so displacement is an issue in arlington and virtually everywhere else except where i'm sitting in baltimore maryland we don't have that much of that but um there are 10 protections of course you know covid has really impacted tenants and there are protections in place that will be ending um so we expect a huge wave of evictions coming up fairly soon and we'd like to make sure that landlords have um give significant notice when they are selling or redeveloping the property so tenants could find suitable housing um there's also a statewide push for this tenant opportunity to purchase act so the town has indicated an interest in supporting purchases purchasers through this if this act does pass and then there are people with disabilities often have a hard time finding accessible housing particularly in the older buildings um there's also not a lot of outreach um to these um tenants who also have other you know have a variety of issues in finding housing and so it's important to make sure that tenants know available accessible units as well as making modifications to make sure that units are there are available accessible units um and then partner with some financial or quasi public institutions to make financing options available to protected classes it's absolutely no secret that protected classes have a far lower rate of mortgage approvals and um there often needs to be some intervention with local financial institutions to make sure that they're meeting their um CRA requirements and other requirements okay thank you very much I just like to invite all the panelists back on um and Judy is going to leave the discussion and then follow by some q and a that was great thank you everyone there are a few questions in q and a we've also been kind of thinking about some questions as you've been talking so let me kind of go to the q and a questions first and bring those up and then we do have some others for you as well um one of the questions pretty direct is if it is illegal if it's a legal obligation to promote fair housing actively why does community activism against this work so effectively um why are municipalities listening to people who ask them then to break the law shall I pick on someone or do you want to sort of jump in um on your own Robert do you want to pop do you want to talk or do you want me to or um I guess the the short answer is unfortunately in the united states we have something called de jure segregation uh where the political structures and the legal structures of the country uh for decades and centuries supported jim crow segregation in one form or another so um as a matter of fact the first civil rights law that was ever passed in the united states was passed in 1866 so they've been breaking federal laws uh for quite some time unfortunately that's deeply embedded in the in the political culture and it took the pressure of the civil rights movement in the 60s and 70s to begin a counter movement uh to not only improve the civil rights laws but to try to get them enforced but don't forget every time we come up with a legal or political or regulatory mechanism to guarantee people their rights the other side is working just as hard to unravel them and undercut them as we currently see we we have a group of legislators who had to fly from texas to dc the other day to prevent their legislature from passing a law that's a jim crow law that would have taken people's voting rights away so it's it's understandable that there's been this political tug of war uh throughout our history and uh but there are folks in this country who think we're going to go backwards but we're not we're going to go forward we're on the right side of history and eventually we're going to prevail diane did you want to follow up um no i think i was absolutely right um and as i mentioned in my presentation arlington is pretty progressive and i've been you know i i think that it's one of the best plans because of that sort of accepting responsibility aspect of it and i can't tell you how many jurisdictions i've worked with that don't want to do this they had to do it so they are forced to do it they water down every recommendation that looks like you know to consider or think about or perhaps or whatever and this plan doesn't do any of that so i think the accountability is really high here and judy if i may i'd love to jump in just in some respect as well because i'm reminded of my time sort of providing some technical assistance in arlington and to hear sort of comments oftentimes that were sometimes discriminatory right had this sort of language there and i i'm sorry jenny i have to pick on you but i must say i was so so enlightened and impressed to hear her response to that comment right in terms of being able to discern and identify right a statement such as like we're not going to take a discriminatory for housing comments into consideration and make these decisions like you know the board is mindful that they're not going to take those into consideration how do you have this language of a forehand how do you train give training and provide the resources available to various boards and to municipalities and decision makers right in this planning aspect so that they are clear um on how they might respond right because there's like this free speech and people can say what they want to say but also this is for housing component that really sort of provides this guidance about around public discourse and so that's one of the things that we at chapa are sort of really working alongside some of our other technical assistance providers to really think about um providing some more guidance right um and again it goes back to as bob said this is historical this has been happening for some time but often times the language is sort of guised as something else it's not as overt saying we don't want x living here right in our community but it's guised as something else and so as we look at sort of the work that we're a policy work we're looking at in terms of pushing new legislation around exclusionary zoning and disparate impact right and all of these different things we're considering all of that um in some of the barriers that again does actually trickle down sometimes in the decision making but how do we provide uh the resources and the language much like i saw jenny jump in and and stay um in one of these sort of community meetings um to provide across the state so those are some of the things we're thinking about as well thank you bob did you want to add something yeah um um not to be too philosophical about it but i've been spending the last two or three days reading a lot of documents about arlington and i found some really fascinating stuff um and one of the things is arlington is a really hot real estate market people are clamoring to buy housing in arlington i found that in the last couple years uh the number of transactions in the private side of the market has doubled uh it doubled last year and already the first six months of this year it's up to 108 transactions which means it's going to probably break the record from last year so and i also found out that when housing is put on the market it stays on for about eight days stuff moves very very quickly at a very very high price so for those who take the view that they don't want either more housing or more people or new people newsflash uh new people are moving into arlington already it's a popular place it's going it's going to remain popular and folks are are going to buy in um oftentimes i hear about opposition to affordable housing multifamily housing expanding housing i don't think it's the housing that people are opposed to i think it's the people that the housing is likely to attract back to our issues of protected glasses well newsflash folks we live in a metropolitan area that's becoming more diverse every day people are piling in to the boston metropolitan area for all sorts of reasons and some of them are going to stay in the boston area and they're going to look for housing and they're not just going to live in boston they're going to look to other parts of the metropolitan area so and that group is becoming even with gentrification displacement which we're fighting tooth and nail in boston that new population is becoming more diverse and the places that attract that new labor force that that we're going to be working in the creative economy the innovative economy in the biotech world they're going to become more diverse so if you take the view that we don't want anybody coming here we want to keep everything and everybody out the changes that are taking place in the economy are going to pass you by and you're going to be left in the dust it's just what our friends in the world of ecology have tried to teach us for a long time monocrop culture and agriculture dies it does not work if you don't model your agriculture based on biodiversity you're not going to last and i think the same is true for human society so why don't we go to another question because we do have several um can you can you describe the process for how to file a complaint when there is a fair housing violation like who was protected under fair housing laws how do they file a complaint and who's actually held liable for those violations judy i can i can answer from the the arlington perspective the town perspective first and others can speak to just more broadly the issues but the arlington human rights commission which is just arlingtonhumanrights.org actually right on their right on their home page they have a button that says report an incident walks you through the steps that you need to take in order to report an incident of discrimination it also talks about on that same page the process that they use the timeline that it takes to evaluate the report and other steps that are needed as part of the process so i would start there if there is an issue related to discrimination the arlington human rights commission is tasked with addressing those issues and following up on those reports and incidents it's related to the protected classes in arlington which are the same protected classes that judy and diane and others have already spoken to but that is those are race color religious views national origin sex gender identity and expression citizenship age ancestry family marital status sexual orientation disability source of income and military status i've just read verbatim what's on the page but so i would encourage people to take a look at that as well as the wealth of other documents and information on the commission's page and i'll defer to others if there's you know other things to add on to sort of that process of filing a report and what often happens which i also think is sort of relevant in a way to that question for example dealing with m cad or others right bob did you want to add something yes and this is important for anyone filing a complaint or dealing with fair housing enforcement the fair housing act makes it very clear anyone anyone can file a fair housing complaint whether you have suffered from discrimination directly or if you know of a situation that's about to happen that may involve a discriminatory act anyone can file a complaint as an individual any church any neighborhood association any group can file a fair housing complaint and i know diane counseling you'd be you're familiar with this but for the folks in the audience we even have a federal court case traficante versus metropolitan life with the federal court backed that up and said that uh folks who are not directly involved but indirectly involved can file a fair housing complaint that's important for people in arlington tonight thank you um i'm going to go on to another question here um um who who would you recommend to do the kind of impact assessment for the town meeting warrant who's going to who would do that that was one of the recommendations in the fair housing plan and i'm wondering if there's a you know what people think about that who should do that any thoughts i can take a stab at this one but i believe um you know there will be other suggestions about ways to do this and i think that you know we would welcome the discussion about the process that we would use and how that would actually work whether it would be sort of a in part by the petitioner of the article a committee or board that is charged you know with the with reviewing those articles i would say that that could be perhaps something that's part that assessment could be part of a report to town meeting other bodies that make reports to town meeting might also perform the same assessment if they're looking at you know financial decisions or or other decisions not necessarily by law amendments there are all different types of of warrant articles proposed of course at town meeting so i think that it would be sort of a little bit the petitioner and then of course a process by which we often go through of evaluating articles as part of the development of a report to town meeting and then of course there might be another step in there which i think is sort of other groups that may want to weigh in we talked about the human rights commission there's likely other bodies that would have that could have bring a significant voice to that conversation as well as observations and perhaps their own assessment so i think that there could be a lot of ways to get at that sort of assessment or evaluation process so even perhaps an assessment tool that an individual board or committee or someone who is proposing a warrant article could apply really in part a sort of a self-education process but also to be thinking about that impact assessment as they're preparing a warrant article would that make sense as well potentially yes and i do think that i'm sort of a process of educating people who are participating in these town processes is something that we recommended in the fair housing action plan as well so i think that it dovetails with some of the the strategies that were discussed or the recommendations that diane was suggesting related to town governance structure as well as processes i think they all sort of fit hand in hand thank you and then i see bob yes bob when i read the fair housing plan at least a portion i was able to get through it's a fabulous document it's really really well done and really well thought out but one one of the recommendations i had right off the bat was that your human rights commission i think they should apply to hud for certification so they can become substantially equivalent to hud and therefore have all the enforcement powers of remedies and everything else that hud would be able to render in any fair housing complaint process and i think with that kind of enforcement power behind it that should be the entity that would do the assessments and if anything were out of line of your fair housing commission or your human rights commission uh could file its own commission initiated complaint if it felt that the situation was really serious enough enough they could bring their own complaint and i think that will make fair housing enforcement arlington really serious and people will take it seriously so another question um and you know whitney i might bump this one to you and i don't want to put you on the spot so if you're not comfortable answering somebody else could jump in but this is kind of a massachusetts specific question and that is whitney mentioned and i've seen it in my practice over three decades that one of the groups that particularly um suffers from fair housing from from housing discrimination through land use laws is families with children and i'm wondering what you think um really anybody but but whitney i'm just because you've been around so many communities any minds and thoughts about this um to what extent does reform of the whole school funding approach in massachusetts have anything to do with this conversation or is that really just a distraction i'm wondering what what if you have any thoughts on that yeah thank you and judy for that question um i've heard it said before from my my mentor who's on screen with me here bob that you know really the budgets are moral documents right and and sort of where you put your money and and how you allocate that um how it's structured really speaks to sort of the intent right it's it speaks to the heart um in many ways right and so i think it's important as we think about familial status you know families with children you're thinking about schools um you're thinking about um you know how funding gets streamed in and how schools are growing what they have access to right it really gets back to our question about you know how housing is really interrelated to so many other aspects of our livelihoods right and so there there's no way to really have the conversation about uh funding in schools with the schools without also talking about housing it's just it's just so um interrelated and so i think we have to lean into um the conversations of of really correlating those things together right it has to we have to be mindful about what those impacts will be for not only the community but individuals who are looking to live in that community for instance as well um and what it means for their families um so yes i think that it's important for us to really be thinking about what those potential impacts would be um when implemented um as it relates to housing and you know the housing affordability like all all of these things really really do uh overlap in many ways thank you it's kind of my experience too but i thought i would ask one of the pan one or more of the panelists anybody else said anything to hear what others others um yeah would add there as well but i i just i just think that it there's just we have to start thinking about these ways together right thinking the last year right we've we've gotten into our language that housing is healthcare right we've we've got it right but we also have to be thinking about this when we think of these other equity lenses in terms of transportation and jobs and access to healthy foods and and schools we have to start to continue to have this in our language as we look at these issues and how to solve them uh overall perspective anybody else want to weigh on that or shall i go to another question because there are plenty here so uh an arlington resident has asked um you know how can arlington find a community developer who will develop 100 affordable housing um in arlington the the current inclusionary zoning policy uh is ineffective and and you know and some perceive it to be kind of abused by developers because a majority of the units in a given development can be kind of market rate so um how can the town engage a community developer who will do 100 percent affordability um and what are your thoughts on that of course i want to just recognize that arlington has the arlington housing corporation and i know that they do they have done 100 affordable projects but i'm just wondering kind of what your experience is any of you with a community trying to do to reach out to more community development cvcs or nonprofit housing organizations that will do that kind of development anybody have thoughts on that i don't know particularly know the development landscape there um there's also been a trend towards mixed income development rather than 100 percent affordable housing for lots of reasons but um there have been a number of really really successful mixed income developments i know of all places santa monica which has an average home price of two million dollars has mandatory inclusionary zoning and you know affordable units are in these beautiful buildings by the beach and why not um why shouldn't everyone have that opportunity so to have it mandatory inclusionary zoning as part of a larger development can sometimes make sense particularly in a hot market versus 100 affordable housing which requires a lot of deep subsidies i think um jenny you could certainly mention you know discuss that aspect yeah i'm glad to um i yeah i think that to get 100 affordable housing you know has a little bit to do with the type of housing that we're talking about but a lot to do with other issues the zoning the potential site conditions of course the price of land the price of construction of constructing whatever the building will be as well as many other contextual you know other variables that are factored into any development opportunity so i think it's it's it's a it's a laudable goal and one that of course in partnership with the housing corporation of arlington the town is very committed to and has worked with them for example on two recent developments including providing a significant subsidy to in order to make those developments move forward at one is that downing square in arlington heights and the other one is in east arlington along broadway for example and i think that there are many other opportunities perhaps in the future for for other types of all affordable developments working with with hca for example as well as others potentially including the housing authority is a is obviously an owner of all affordable housing and could potentially uh choose to develop more affordable units in the future um on their properties um that they currently have or perhaps others in the future those are those are options that other communities have engaged in to move things forward but i would say that it's looking at the development uh other development variables that may get in the way of being able to develop a 100 affordable housing project and that goes back to part of what was embedded in the earlier part of the question which is how our inclusionary zoning bylaw may or may not be effective and that is something that we will be investigating a little bit further as part of the development of the housing plan um which we talked about a little bit earlier but to dig into that one um it is not just about the bylaw it's also about development what are the opportunities what are you seeing why are you seeing those types of proposals move forward um but not just about amending the zoning it's more there's many other parts to why a development may or may not proceed uh but we are very interested in trying to figure that out as well as encourage that all affordable housing that was mentioned last thing i'll say is that city of cambridge has put forward and was able to pass an all affordable affordable housing overlay um and that is something that i know uh there's interest in exploring here in arlington um and i would say that that's you know again in the same vein they looked at some of the barriers in order to make it uh happen to make it be um to the point where now it is of course an overlay it didn't amend the underlying zoning but it's something that can float over various parcels with various incentives in order to be to develop denser all affordable housing so another question that's in the q and a is um you know other than state or federal action are there ways to encourage development across all communities in a region rather than focusing on an individual community just wondering what you think about regional approach versus local anybody have any thoughts on that there may be an opportunity um president biden is is really promoting ways to incentivize zoning changes to make it less exclusionary for example and i know that there'll be some financial incentives and that might be something to look at across jurisdictions um some jurisdictions do it really well and others not so much but we have seen in other places you know sort of these regional housing coalitions that do joint development um what's also important is that by merging with other jurisdictions on this approach not just not in terms of government to allow people from other jurisdictions to actually move to the other jurisdictions and that's sort of part of the incentive to do regional collaboration on development thank you i think one of the reasons this sometimes comes up in massachusetts in particular is that chapter 40 b is specifically applied to the individual city or town so when you're a town that has a harder time getting to that 10 standard or whatever other standard the statute you're trying to reach um you know sometimes there's a feeling that perhaps regional solutions would make more sense but the law itself very focuses very much focuses on individual cities and towns and i will just point out because i think sometimes people forget but chapter 40 b the affordable housing law is part of the regional planning statute in massachusetts so its origins are actually regional planning um and i think it's maybe helpful to kind of bear that in mind it also follows the federal fair housing act by about 15 or 16 months so all of these things happened not in a vacuum but very much in relation to each other another question here is um duty yes sorry um i just want to recognize that adam chapter lane the town manager was interested in also providing a response oh okay all right thank you i'm sorry adam is adam able to join the discussion we could forward the link so he can be able to he he was on i i don't see him now um so i'm not sure what has happened and uh perhaps we can bring him back if he if he rejoins as a participant um jill jillian can can let us know sure thank you um so another question that came up in the q and a is can you please place gentrification in this discussion it's a challenge here in arlington affordable housing is is embraced how do we preserve the naturally occurring affordable housing um you know stuff that's sort of historically kind of been affordable maybe below market price how do we keep that affordable thoughts on that is the strategy to preserve existing affordability that is not otherwise restricted by deed bob did you want to comment yeah the the short answer is we even as i said earlier in boston we've been fighting this issue tooth and nail and that just for the last five or six years but it seems like for the last three or four decades there have been waves of gentrification that have come through um about two years ago uh the roxbury neighborhood council and group that i'm a part of uh asked our city councilor uh to have a public hearing in roxbury about gentrification displacement and uh about 350 residents showed up uh 60 of you uh 60 of which testified and we started off the hearing by giving our city councilors 31 recommendations for fighting gentrification displacement uh and we refer to it as our roxbury standards for community development i would be glad to send that to you and have people in arlington figure out which pieces of it would be applicable one of the recommendations we made to take pressure off of our one to four family portion of the our housing market you know in boston they have this way that they do our property tax assessments you know the assessor comes down the street looks at your building then looks across the street and says well this person bought the building for a million dollars so guess what your building is worth a million dollars and we felt that that was an unfair way and a crazy way to do assessments we think each building should be assessed properly on its own merits based on what the person paid for it and what they've invested over the years in its maintenance and upkeep and then go from there in terms of the assessment of the property so we had that plus 30 other recommendations for pushing back against the gentrification wave i'd be glad to send it to you so i'm curious what happened with all those recommendations bob well we were shocked uh because our our city council uh changed and we we now have the most diverse city council in the history of boston uh they actually began to take up some of these issues uh that's why lydia edwards did what she did with our zoning amendment and bringing fair housing into our zoning code um and also we began to do something else that we we had done decades back when we sort of renewed this as a strategy um we started as a community negotiating with developers directly and we said to them um you know uh we can have this tug of war if you want uh it'll cost you more time energy and effort fussing with us than if you come to an agreement with us about what needs to be built and over on fountain avenue we got the developer to do almost a hundred percent affordability and they were home ownership units um so sometimes direct negotiation with developers with community folks saying to them this is the kind of housing we need in our community based on our income distribution based on our needs one of the pushbacks we had with all the developers they were building micro units and studios and one bedroom units and two bedroom units and we said well 80 percent of the folks in our neighborhood can't move in even if we could afford it because they're too small and we began to really pressure the developers and our city government about well if you're not building this stuff for the residents of our neighborhoods who are you building it for and why and that began to open up a whole different dialogue and also brought to light some fair housing issues and slowly but surely we began to uh start seeing more affordability popping up in some of the units I mean some of the developments but it's been a slow process thank you Judy I'm glad that this question really asked us to bring gentrification into the conversation um when I think about gentrification and displacement I am remiss I have to think about communities in terms of whether or not it's an inclusive community we're talking about or if we're talking about a historically exclusionary community right and so I think that when we talk about this um these terms and this context we should be mindful as well um about what it is we're talking about I think in terms of the action plan and the work that you're doing and the assessment of our housing it's so important certainly to be thinking about what does it mean for uh me for intentionally as an Arlington resident to be able to live here and continue to live here and afford to live here and for my children and my grandchildren to be able to do so my friends and neighbors but also this context of creating a community that also allows for others who would like to live in our community to be able to do so as well right so um so this this duality of the different types of communities that there are but also thinking about what does that mean in terms of creating a balance right being mindful of gentrification uh and displacement in a community that has been historically exclusionary maybe a different conversation than a community that is uh sort of a more inclusive community right more diverse community so I love that we brought that into uh the conversation as we're also thinking about what does it mean to sustain affordable housing and create affordable housing and all of that in the context um of our community but it's important to do all of that good great work and assessment in the context uh of your community but certainly there are things that we can learn from what other communities have been able to do and develop and adopt that can really help us in that the efforts and I might add that there are some um shared equity models that seem to really work so for example um there are a number of community land trusts that basically write down the cost of the land to make more affordable housing and allows residents to remain there's also some you know limited equity co-ops and other kinds of home ownership opportunities for these residents that could really be effective thank you I'm going to move on to another question um so I'll summarize this because it's it's it's kind of long but and I have not fact checked the statistics in this but I'll just read it um you know out of honor to the person who posted it Arlington's population declined from 53,500 in 1970 to 43,735 in 2020 the number of housing units is about 19,000 you know this year the number of units has increased but household size has decreased over the past 50 years a lot of Arlingtonians are concerned about density but I believe the roots of our traffic and parking in school populations discriminatory discrimination certainly exists in Arlington but it may not be accurate to imply that nimbyism or discrimination is the most prevalent barrier I believe many Arlingtonians want both fair and forehousing and quality of life in Arlington what are your comments about how to bring these ideas into balance um perhaps better urban design would help mitigate some of the tension what what do you think about that I realize that was sort of a statement more than a question but it ends with the question you know what do you think about trying to bring some of these competing ideas and needs into balance I guess I'll jump in there just to say that um what I love about the question is it's asking about balance right and I think sometimes we can find ourselves sort of summarizing the ideals of residents in Arlington in one way because oftentimes there are sometimes voices that are heard really loudly right how do you get the balance in that space about who shows up to public meetings and who talks about these ideas of wanting certain development and maybe having actual viable concerns about traffic and parking as opposed to um you know as we see in so many communities that I'm working with oftentimes it's disguised as parking but it's really something else um and so the real the real piece that I I look at in terms of the question is really how do you bring more voices to the table who care and love Arlington and sort of want those values that they talk about and this the question that was posed how do you sort of allow for the real balance of the voices that you're hearing in the community to come to the table right um and so I think that it's important to to do the work that's necessary to make sure that there is inclusivity in those conversations and that takes real work right sometimes that means providing translation sometimes that means rethinking when you're doing your public meetings and how is there a hybrid opportunity to do things virtually as well as in person do you provide food child I mean there's so many different things right but I think that the idea of really creating balance in those voices and then certainly being able to um talk about what those real concerns might be in the community and really being able to allay fears that come along um with that so great Bob did you want to add something I think this goes back to the discussion we had about the the new HUD reg and the use of the assessment tool to do assessments of their housing it's not a complicated issue but it is a complex one with lots of moving pieces to it moving parts to it if we're concerned about density of either housing or population or both um and we say well we don't want density because folks will bring their cars we'll end up with where we put the cars and now we have to have more land set aside for cars and we get more traffic okay um so then that means we need perhaps to look at our zoning code and lower the parking ratios instead of upping the parking ratios uh some people up the parking ratios on multifamily housing to undercut the development we've seen that tactic used over and over again so okay if we're going to lower the parking ratios well then that begs the question how are people going to get around so now you have to look at well if you're not going to let them get around by car is the town walkable can you use bikes or better yet public transportation so when you pull on one thread of the sweater another part of the sweater starts to fall apart that's why you have to have a conversation that's based on intersectionality you have to see this as a whole and that the the solutions are complex and varied so maybe it's the thing of Arlington needs more public transportation and fewer cars so no matter what we build you know increased traffic and more land devoted to park because I could tell you if they had thought that way in Boston we wouldn't be inundated all day long with traffic everywhere right and we're the fourth most expensive city in the country for parking so let's take a look at our assessment tool and as Whitney said bring the parties together and negotiate thank you um there's another question here that I think you folks might want to field um person says I specific I appreciate some of the specific recommendations that Diane has presented but I question the value of enabling duplex units in single families owned areas since Arlington and greater Boston generally is such an overheated high demand market unless the second unit is deed restricted to be affordable won't it result in two upper limit households or units in other words all market rate at the highest level the market will bear I'm not sure if you want to go I'll just take a quick um stab um that's true but they could be deed restricted if for example if home funds might be used to create that you know the second unit or cdbg or whatever local funding they could have a deed restriction with for example Massachusetts passed this aid allowing a new statute allowing accessory dwelling units California passed the same one lots of states have passed that and what Los Angeles for example is doing is looking at providing low interest loans or grants to homeowners so they can add that unit and have it affordable to maybe an elderly person a person with disabilities or if it's large enough a family so there are somewhat creative ways using local resources to make that second unit affordable thank you does anyone else have thoughts on this let me see uh one of the earlier comments or questions that came up was uh it seems like our town is progressive about this meaning the fair reference to the fair housing plan and we had a progressive new possible set of zoning regulations and the community got to vote on it and voted it down how is it that legal event that that more powerful I guess a little bit um garbled question here but how is it that some people can have more powerful than our federal obligation to promote fair housing how is it that that the interests that appear to at least to this speaker to be antithetical to fair housing end up having more clout in the process than those who support it it's really an institutional question but I throw it to all of you I'll just jump in I mean I'll just go back to it's kind of the answer to the to another question um which speaks to sort of this increased awareness education um and making people understand or helping people to understand uh the issues that we're talking about and um to Bob's point the intersectionality of all of these issues I think that the that's really key to helping people make better decisions I also think that it speaks to the other pieces that we talked about in terms of the town governance and who takes part in some of the decision making uh with regard to the structure so I think those are all things that to me intersect with outcomes um potentially around fair housing so the the intention is both educational as well as a little bit of restructuring or rethinking I think the word is alter in the plan but rethinking of some of that structure towards decision making and that would help perhaps generate some different outcomes do we have time I think for one more question folks it's 850 can we take one more okay thanks um with the formation of the affordable housing trust and the plan to fund it with a percentage of the sale price of houses what recommendations would you make about how those funds should best be used to provide affordable housing and for whom you know such as questions such as you know what what median income level should be targeted etc how could the town make the best use possible of that new affordable housing trust fund I see smiling faces and no volunteers Bob do you want you have your hand up go ahead yes I'll be brave and I'll I'll dive in um um well what one thought that came to mind immediately is to promote affordable home ownership there's a tremendous amount of discussion now about closing the racial wealth gap throughout the country and one thought one strategies begin that's been put forward is to push a more affordable home ownership um you know every time I hear these debates throughout various parts of the state about who's moving in who's moving out how many houses which should we build etc etc multi-family housing so I wonder what would happen if uh people who have the income could get a mortgage and have the credit what if they came in and started buying homes in these communities I wonder if they would be the same rhetoric the same objections because now we're getting down to where the rubber meets the road is it the housing there that they're opposed to or is it the people that would occupy that housing so um not not to use uh home ownership as a fair housing test case I'm not suggesting that I think you know fair the pursuit of home ownership particularly for people of color in this society is crucial and I would suggest that the housing trust start there and build its way out any other thoughts on this before I turn this back to Jenny and Jillian to close up for the night looks to me like we're all set Jenny I think I pass this back to you if I'm not mistaken yes um and thank you and thank you for that last question I'll just answer also live here that um we are developing the housing plan in tandem with once we actually have all of the trustees seated which has yet to happen on the affordable the Arlington Affordable Housing Trust Fund uh they will work to develop an action plan which was what was being referenced in that question in tandem with the housing plan that we're developing so I think that there will be again some overlap there but to speak specifically to fair housing issues that we've raised this evening Bob mentioned one suggestion and I'm certain that others will come up along the way as we begin the development of that process so I first just want to say thank you so much to the panelists for joining tonight I'm so pleased with this conversation and being able to bring awareness to the issue of fair housing to Arlington and have people understand a little bit more about not just some of the issues happening in Arlington but how they relate to the greater Boston region also learn a bit about with the various dynamics on this particular topic and the intersectionality of housing to so many other issues affordable housing fair housing we covered a lot of different aspects of this topic and I think um I personally have learned a great deal from the panelists as well um I appreciate Judy for moderating this discussion all of the questions that we had I know that there are some additional ones the Fair Housing Action Plan is on the housing section of the Department of Planning and Community Development's web page on the town of Arlington site um and if anybody has any further questions they can direct them to me at the Department of Planning and Community Development um and I will be very glad to answer anything in the future I just want to say again thank you to everybody for joining this evening I think I'm going to turn it back over to Jill to close us out awesome thank you Jenny and thank you everyone Diane, Whitney, Bob, Judy, Jenny you all were phenomenal I just learned so much in the last two hours um so I'm really grateful and um I'm happy that this conversation happened and I'm glad that the housing plan is available so folks like Jenny said look check check it out on the website um and I just want to give a few more updates so as we did last year with the community conversations um they will be paralleled by True Story Theater in doing some similar talks with what we're doing here so um next week Tuesday July 20th at 7 p.m. also over Zoom um will be their playback series um who can live here and talking about housing so you can join that conversation as well to go a little bit deeper um and as part of the community conversation series coming up in August on the 10th our next topic will be listening to differing perspectives so that's going to be a conversation about the power of symbolism and its impact on us and you know the power of framing and what that really means um so again I just want to thank everyone thank our panelists for joining us tonight everyone who attended um this will be recorded and available and I do believe I'll double check with everyone but we might be able to pair those slides um with the recording so that will all be posted on the DEI uh webpage on the town so with that I just want to say thank you and have a good night thank you thank you and thank you to Jill and your team thank you so much thanks thank you very much thank you all right have a good night everyone thank you good night