 Good evening, and welcome back to Byline. This is a public affairs show here at Amherst Media, and it's co-sponsored, as you know, by the Amherst League of Women Voters. And we're focused on the changing town government here in Amherst, and occasionally we bring in guests who are not on the council but whose work will be considered by the council as time goes on. So today we have one of those shows with John Hornick, the chair, and let's see if I get this right, the Amherst Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. How did I do? Absolutely. Usually I forget one of the words. Let's just call it from here on in the trust, so we don't have to repeat that long title. Right, absolutely. Maybe you ought to get a marketing person or a branding person to help you come up with a new name. It's really much too long. But the work of this trust is very, very important here in Amherst, and so John, I know you have a proposal that's going to town council, and we're going to come to that in a few minutes. But let's give our viewers a little bit of background here because they may not all be familiar with what the trust does and what it's about. So tell us how did it come into being and what's its purpose? Thank you, Stan. The trust emerged from what was the Housing and Sheltering Committee, which was focused on trying to promote affordable housing in town and also maintained public support for the seasonal shelter, seasonal homeless shelter. At some point, the Housing and Sheltering Committee decided that we really needed to have a body with more authority. And under state law, it is possible for a community to adopt a housing trust. So we formulated a bylaw, which came before town meeting. It was duly passed, and the trust was created three or four years ago now. The major focus of the trust is on promoting affordable housing. We did a strategic planning, a number of sessions that focused on that. We came away with six major goals. I'm going to only touch on three of them. One is promoting the development of affordable housing. The second is assuring the continuation of the seasonal homeless shelter and cooperating generally with efforts on behalf of homeless persons throughout the valley. And third on engaging in public education. Very good. Just to make sure I'm looking at this the correct way, when you talk about the existing seasonal homeless shelter, are you talking about Craig's door? Yes, Craig's door. Very good. So they've been struggling to stay afloat and have been pursuing a number of strategies. The legislative delegation over recent years has been able to get earmarks, but sometimes earmarks are unreliable. And though it's got Craig's door's name on that money, sometimes it's hard to get it, and it's hard every year to go back to the legislature and expect that earmark year after year after year. So I'm glad that your folks are still keeping an eye on that and trying to be helpful because we need to find a way to institutionalize that and integrate it permanently into the state budget so you don't have to chase an earmark every year. They are actually close to that at this point. The Department of Housing and Community Development included a budget for Craig's doors as part of the governor's proposed budget to the state legislature. Oh, terrific. So that's in there. That's the first time, so that's great news. Yes. That's great. That's great. And frankly, we have a Western Massachusetts woman who's been involved with homeless service for quite a number of years, Jane Banks, who now works for the Department of Housing and Community Development for getting that into their budget. That's great. Well, I know she has been working hand in glove with the Craig's door staff and bored as well and the legislative delegation to find a solution. So go, Jane. All right. That's really terrific news. So let's flip back to your development agenda. So tell us what you've been working on in that sphere. Well, our task is to do everything that we can to encourage development of affordable housing. The project that we are focused on as a board right now is development of affordable housing at the site of the old East Street School. People are familiar. The old school is just off the East Street Common. And it's been out of use for a number of years. There have been, let's see, I should say the school was first built over a century ago in the 19th century. They had a major fire. It was rebuilt in the 1930s and it remained in use as a school probably until Fort River was constructed because it's very close to the Fort River School. Since then, it served for a few years as an overflow when Fort River was too crowded. Solomon Goldstein-Rose told me he was a student there in the 1990s. Our former state representative. Our former state representative, right? And since then, it's had other uses. It was temporarily housed an alternative learning program for the high school. Over a number of years, it housed the Yiddish Book Center before they moved to their current building in South Amherst. But actually for the last five years, it has been unused. At the five years or so ago, the town considered using it for the leisure services department. They actually put out bids to see if someone would come and do the necessary renovation reconstruction. But it turned out that the bids were a few hundred thousand higher than the town had committed and as a consequence, that project was abandoned. So at some point, people on the school, not the school committee, sorry, the Select Board suggested that a good alternative use would be affordable housing. And in the last 18 months, the two years, the trust has been working in that direction. Great. What are the upcoming steps that the trust has to go through to be able to realize an actual project in that building on that site? Okay. And it may not be in that building, but it may be on that site. On that site. So it is possible that the proposal that comes in that is the most viable would have the building removed? Absolutely. It's not in an historic district where it cannot be removed? It's in a historic building. So tell us about that. If the building is going to be removed, then that would have to be removed by both the Amherst and State Historical Commissions. They could put a delay on it of up to one year. It's possible. In general, that's been the attitude of the local historical commission to hold things up for a year if there is something like the school that has a real history to it. So what could, so in order to avoid a fight about the building, what could you do with the building so that we didn't have to have a fight about whether to remove it? One other steps prior to reaching this point, the housing trust or the town really entered into a contract with Cune Riddle Architects. And Alon Tierney, Charles Roberts, who are major persons in that firm, did an analysis both of the site and the school. And I will say to my surprise, they found a path for reusing the schools. They constructed drawings that showed the possibility for six one-bedroom apartments that would use the space quite nicely. As most old schools, there are high ceilings, big windows, and so you could get some very attractive apartments. What they couldn't do, though, as part of their work, is to analyze the potential problems of renovation, particularly related to the presence of asbestos and lead in the building. It's an old building. And if those become very serious, then honestly the costs of renovation would exceed, too much exceed the value of the building, and then we would have to go in another direction. Well, and if that were the case, then you would have the same problem no matter how you would want to reuse that building. Yes, absolutely. And so the fact that it's been vacant for five years is kind of like the pause that would suggest that on the other side of the pause, meaning the future, would be very hard then if it was found that you couldn't, that there was too much asbestos and lead to deal with, then that might push the building in the direction of demolition. Absolutely. And that will be a... But it's nice to preserve old things if we can. Do you agree? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I like the building. It has a lovely exterior, and the idea of, as I said, one bedroom apartment with those high ceilings and large windows is very attractive. Okay. What else could you do on the rest of the land? Because it occupies a piece of that land, but the land extends behind it. Tell us more about what could be there. Okay. There land is not formally divided, but in fact, there's kind of a back parcel and a front parcel. The back parcel has been informally used as a recreation area for many years. It turns out one of the steps that we took was to have a wetlands expert come in and look at the whole property, and he found that the back parcel is way too wet. Nothing can be built on it. In fact, if it's... Any part of that parcel or a portion of it? Any part of that parcel. Any part of it. Okay. So it's from the building forward. The existing building forward is what's buildable. Absolutely. And that's what fronts on East Street. Okay. And do I remember that the building is set back? The building is set back, although again, it turns out to be a pretty small parcel. I think it's around three quarters of an acre. So whether we save the old school building or not, we are still going to have to add units in order to have a reasonable size development. So how many units would you need, or how many beds or how can you characterize it for us? Well, Q and Riddle did that as part of their analysis. They suggested that we could have anywhere from 20 or so units to 36 units. And those would vary in size. So there would be a mix of studios, but more commonly, there should be two and three bedroom apartments so that we can accommodate families there. Okay. So if you can't go back, there's only two other directions, up or forward. So tell us about that. Well... How do you get that many units on that parcel? You do have to build up. That was one of the things that the Q and Riddle architects explored. And they suggested the potential for either three or four buildings on that site. And obviously, the more you build up, the more units that you can accommodate. Okay. So what's the tallest other building in that neighborhood? It's the Jewish community of Amherst building. There's a church across this way. We've got the school across the street this way, which is not a high rise. So how many stories up do you think you might be going in order to accommodate that? Well, one of the other things the Housing Trust did was to draft a request for proposals. And we tried to leave it flexible to a significant degree so that we wouldn't hamstring the developer who has to go through a careful process of planning and has to get financing, has to go by the zoning board in town, has to satisfy the building commissioner, and so on and so forth. So it will really be up to the developer to decide what to propose to the town zoning board and to talk to people in the neighborhood, to talk to other people in town, and decide what's feasible from these various points of view. On that particular site. On that particular site, yes. One of the things that Q&Riddle folks did is to suggest ways in the design of the building to prevent it from looking like a huge mess. And I think that's good advice. I mean, we'll see where we get to. Very good. Well, that's going to require a lot of community input, especially in that neighborhood. And there's, you know, there's a certain amount of buzzing in town about the five and six and whatever story buildings that are going up downtown toward the university. And so this is, there's a lot of sensitivity in town now about how tall should things be in relation to the character of the community and the character of the neighborhood. So that's going to be very interesting to see how that plays out. But basically, it means that the additional construction is going to have to be out toward the street. Exactly. And so that means also that since there are houses on both sides of out toward the street on both sides, it means that the view of the historic building is not going to be seen from the front probably because the scale of the buildings are probably going to be high enough that you might not see the building. I believe that would be the case. Yes. Okay. So that's, that's, that's another interesting aspect. Okay. So, but that's only one project. So there's a third charge that you guys have, which is to promote and cheer, be cheerleaders for other projects that will provide some more affordable housing. Yes. So are you involved in any cheerleading at this point? Well we are. Valley Community Development is working toward creating a 28 unit studio apartment on route nine west of town, just a little west of the Amherst football field. So they have acquired a property there. They are in the midst of doing architectural planning. They have been talking to neighbors since this is going to be a building that will house people of low income or very low income, including persons who are homeless. We're already seeing some neighborhood opposition form. Nonetheless, the trust is behind it. Valley Community Development really came before the Community Preservation Act Committee asking for half a million dollars in support and the trust had voted to put that at the top of the priority list and when we were giving recommendations to the Community Preservation Act Committee. Did you say, and I missed it, how many units they're talking about? Twenty-eight units. Twenty-eight. Okay. And the nature of those units, can you give us a little more description of what you think might be the nature of the units? Yes. They will be studio apartments. They will be quite small. 250 to 300 square feet or so. Each unit, though, will have a kitchenette, its own bathroom, and space for lounging and space for sleeping. It'll be tight, but it's part of what makes it very affordable. And that would require pretty much all public funding? Yes. Even if the Community Preservation Act Committee gives Valley the half a million dollars they're asking for, they're going to need significantly more money, and they're going to go to the primary funder of affordable housing in the state, the Commonwealth's Department of Housing and Community Development. They are the largest public bank in essence. For this type of work. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Now, we're going to East Street. How would that project get financed? Probably similarly. However, the town makes an immediate contribution of the property and the land, assuming that is what the, sorry, the town council approves. Do they give the land or lease the land? The plan right now is to lease the land to provide a 99-year lease under the theory that 99 years from now, if the land reverts back to the town, maybe somebody will see some other purpose or use for it, and so the town will have that flexibility. I won't be around to see it, but... Do you see the nature of the East Street project being mixed use or all low-income residents? As part of the request for proposals, we are requiring to the developer to have at least 15 affordable units on the site, varying levels of affordability and size. Beyond that, it's up to the developer. As they add additional units, they could be market rate, or they could also be affordable depending upon issues of the market, of financing, what's best for the site, and so on and so forth. And the nature of the second one would make it all affordable. Yes, the Valley community would be all affordable units. It's all affordable. And again, it would be a range of affordability from 80% area meeting income down to 30% area meeting income. Let's talk for a couple of minutes about 40B. And actually, I should just say a Chapter 40, because there's a number of subsections of that. And my understanding is that the East Street school might possibly be a 40R project? That's possible. More likely to be a 40B project requiring a special permit. But we'll see as we move along. Let's explain the differences here. Let's start with the original policy, which is Chapter 40 of the Massachusetts General Laws is a chapter that was formed to encourage communities to have a level of affordable housing to be able to ensure that there were affordable units for people in their community of all incomes. And there was a 10% goal for each community. Most has historically been among the communities that is at near close to 10% probably for most of the years of that statute's been on the books. Are we still there? We are still there. We're actually a little over 11% at this point in time. So we do look better than most of the other cities and towns in the Commonwealth. That's good on the one hand. We can pat ourselves on the back. But on the other hand, in Amherst as elsewhere, there really still is a shortage of affordable housing without being too critical of the legislature. They could have set the bar a little bit higher than 10%, but I'm sure in the process of negotiation, that's what seemed reasonable or appropriate. Round numbers are very popular in the legislature. But also if you consider that when that law was set was probably 40, 50 years ago, the amount that people were paying as a percentage of their income for their housing was significantly less than it is today, although significantly more than it was 40 and 30 and 40, 50 years before that. When I was growing up, when we were growing up, the rule of thumb was 25% of your income was about the highest most people were paying for their housing. Now it's well over 50% for the typical family. And so looking at that number today, it seems like it's low. Looking at it 50 years ago, maybe not have been too low. But the issue is that most communities are not achieving that. And Amherst has a set of values which has it, we see ourselves as having a responsibility to be a welcoming community for people of all backgrounds and all incomes. And so we've done a pretty darn good job of complying with 40, with chapter 40. But within chapter 40, because there can be additional costs to a community as a result of having affordable housing, there's a provision called 40R which most people don't know even what 40R is. And I think one of your projects may be eligible for that if you plan it correctly. Can you explain a little bit about 40R? Sure. With the support of mass housing finance, which funded a grant to the town that the trust actually applied for, we have a consultant, a really a couple of consultants who are looking at the town and looking for areas where the housing could be denser than it is now. So 40R is a provision of the law that would in a sense override the existing zoning laws, although the town has to adopt it and allow more dense housing in a particular area of town. And it could be frankly as small as a single lot or as large as several blocks. So we're looking forward to see what we learn from the consultant. And that's an even more dense and a more aggressive form than the 40B, which we'll talk about in a second. But am I recalling correctly that 40R also has an incentive on the other side, which is if there are school children in those units, which there often will be, that there is an additional educational subsidy that's provided to the community to help support the additional children that may be living in those units. I wasn't aware of that. So check that out. That's very important. Check it out and see if it's still there, because that will be an important point. Of course, people worry, will the state actually maintain that program on into the future and will they honor it every year? After all, we've had a requirement on the books for generations of full funding of regional school transportation. If you would regionalize your school, and we've never even been at 100% except for the very, very, very, very, very beginning. But for at least the 40 years that I was working at the state house, it was never fully funded. So I get that people might cast a, it might raise their eyebrow saying, are they doing it? But to the best of my knowledge, that program still exists and it has been working effectively in communities where 40R was applied, because as you point out, there's more density, which means more families in that piece of, in a structure on that piece of land, and therefore they're likely to be more children in the schools. And so it's on the one hand pushing to put more, but on the other hand recognizing that putting more has implications for town budget. And 40B is a similar thing. We only have another minute here. So 40B, explain 40B in one minute. 40B, generally, actually, I'm not good on that. So 40B, sorry, John, so I'll try to do that. 40B basically allows a community that is under 10% to base developers to come forward in a community where it's under 10% affordable housing and propose a project over the objections of the existing zoning bylaws of the community. So since Amherst is over 10%, it might apply, not apply in that situation, however 40R might, but I'm not certain of that. So we have to do our homework on that. And now we're out of time. So John, I want to thank you very much for being here. And for giving us some insight into this board, which is very well known to you and its members, but maybe less known to our community. And they are already before town council. They've had their first meeting with the town council to talk about the East Street Project. They will be coming back. And we should all be paying attention because it's an important question of reuse of a beautiful old historic building in our community. So thank you very much, John, for being with us. And thanks for joining us. And we'll see you again, I hope, on another occasion. Thank you, Stan. You're welcome.