[0:23] Good evening, everybody. Thank you for being here tonight, both in person and virtually. We are here from

[0:31] Barrett Planning Group, and we are working with the town of Chatham on a visioning process for

[0:37] affordable and attainable housing development on two recently acquired town-owned properties on

[0:43] Main Street and Meeting House Road. So we'll be giving you some information about both of those properties this evening.

[0:50] Just in terms of the agenda for this evening, Gloria is going to tell us a little bit about

[0:54] the project background.

[0:56] And then it's going to come back over to us at Barrett Planning Group to talk a little

[0:59] bit about housing needs in Chatham.

[1:01] Looking first at what was learned from the 2018 housing production plan, which was kind of

[1:07] our primary source for learning about housing needs in Chatham.

[1:10] And then kind of looking at what maybe has changed or remained the same for years later.

[1:14] And then we'll be going into details about each of the properties, the main street property and the meeting house road property.

[1:23] There'll be some time for questions in between all of those different topics.

[1:28] And then at the end we'll have kind of a broader Q&A session as well.

[1:32] And then go over what the next steps are for this process.

[1:35] So with that said, I'm going to briefly turn it over to Gloria McPherson.

[1:41] Hi everyone, welcome and thank you.

[1:46] Welcome and thank you for coming to the first of a series of community engagement meetings

[1:51] where we talk about possible development scenarios on the two properties that Alexis mentioned.

[1:57] I'm Gloria McPherson, the Housing and Sustainability Director for the Town of Chatham,

[2:03] relatively new, coming up on my four-month anniversary, so I see some familiar faces,

[2:08] but most of you I don't know, but thank you for coming to the forum. I'd like to give

[2:15] a brief shout out to our town manager, Jill Goldsmith who's here and our director of community

[2:20] development, Katie Dunnvan, who provided a lot of the background information for what we're

[2:26] going to be doing today. And also I see members of the Select Board here in other town committees

[2:32] important. So thank you everyone for coming.

[2:37] So why are we here? So back in 2020, the town

[2:45] decided that it was going to kind of take control of the housing crisis and issued an RFP

[2:55] for the purchase of land or buildings that could potentially be suitable for affordable housing

[3:01] and attainable housing,

[3:07] and since then we've issued the RFP a few times, maybe five times,

[3:12] with the hopes that people would submit proposals for the sale of their property so that

[3:18] we could purchase it for affordable and attainable housing.

[3:21] Just to give you a sense of what that RFP process is like just so you understand the timeline

[3:28] because everyone wants housing but nothing happens quickly in town government and especially

[3:32] in housing development because there are so many steps, even just the acquisition process takes

[3:38] a long time. So housing RFP is issued. It's out there for a certain amount of time. Property

[3:44] owners respond to that RFP. They give the town a proposal saying how much they want for

[3:50] their property. The town has to do due diligence. We have to do appraisals. We have to understand

[3:57] the property. We have to make an evaluation to determine whether it's suitable for the development

[4:01] of housing, and then all of the schools into negotiations, it's possible that the offering

[4:10] prices higher than what the land appraisers for, and the town can't purchase something

[4:15] higher than what it appraisers for, so that's all part of the negotiation.

[4:20] And then ultimately, an approving body has to approve the purchase, and in our case, we had two

[4:28] different approving bodies for two different properties based on the funding sources for that.

[4:35] And the next slide will go into that a little bit more detail.

[4:41] So we ended up purchasing two properties based on proposals that we received from two separate RFPs.

[4:48] So we didn't get them in the same one.

[4:50] That's why we keep reassuring it because different circumstances arise.

[4:54] Different people might be interested in selling at that point.

[4:57] And in fact, we're going to keep doing that.

[4:59] We recently re-asshoot it, and we'll probably do it again in another three months.

[5:04] So if you know of anybody,

[5:07] so the first house is on Main Street.

[5:10] It was the former Buckley family property, the older dresses 1533 Main Street, and we also

[5:18] bought a property from the Fall River Diasis on Meeting House Road.

[5:23] And those two properties are the subject of this entire community engagement process, which is going to involve meetings like this, as well as the survey in January, which we'll hear more about from our consultants.

[5:37] And now, to get into more particulars about the properties, just so you start to understand what we're working with.

[5:42] So, the first property is our main street property.

[5:46] This is purchased from the Buckley family.

[5:49] There was originally a house on the property that was subdivided out.

[5:53] So, the town bought the property without the house, the remainder of it.

[5:57] Approximately two and a half acres for 1.375 million.

[6:02] The funding source was half affordable housing trust funds and half free cash.

[6:08] And that's important for a couple of reasons.

[6:09] And so the approval body for the purchase of that was town meeting because they had to approve

[6:14] the expenditure of free cash.

[6:16] And when you use affordable housing trust funds, it limits the development to affordable

[6:22] housing capital A. So 80% AMI and below at least 50% of the units have to be that because

[6:30] of the funding sources used. And yeah, and one of the things I found interesting is the

[6:37] time meeting authorized it to the closing was five months. So things take time. And the next property that we're also going to look at is a property on meeting house road, which was owned by the diocese of fall river.

[6:54] It's across from the church that's over there. This is an undeveloped parcel unlike the one on meeting house road, which had a house and cottages in the back.

[7:01] The parcel is wooded, it's unused, it's actually really beautiful, I walked it the other day.

[7:10] So town meeting author, or the affordable housing trust fund, sorry, authorized $525,000 for the purchase of this.

[7:18] Ultimately we paid $500,000 for it because when we were doing our due diligence as a town and had it surveyed,

[7:25] we realized that the original survey was off and there was actually less land that was owned.

[7:30] By the diocese, so the final size of the parcel is 3.5 acres, approximately, and the town closed

[7:38] on that for a total of $500,000. And because 100% of affordable housing trust funds were used

[7:46] to purchase this, 100% of the units on that property are going to have to be affordable capital

[7:51] a 2% AMI or below.

[7:55] And with that, I'm gonna hand it back over to our consultant team.

[7:58] Thank you.

[8:00] Thank you, Gloria.

[8:01] So we're going to start by talking about housing needs

[8:04] in your community.

[8:06] And as I mentioned, we started by looking at your last,

[8:09] your most recent housing production plan,

[8:12] which was written and approved in 2018.

[8:15] So housing production plans have a life cycle of five years

[8:18] and Massachusetts.

[8:19] So it is still your current active

[8:21] housing production plan, and so that's what we wanted to start with, although of course things

[8:26] change and we wanted to kind of compare and see what has shifted since that plan.

[8:31] So one of the key findings in the 2018 housing production plan was that Chatham's population

[8:37] is aging and that there are fewer younger people within your community.

[8:44] So we wanted to look and see, is that holding true.

[8:46] And it is still true, and notably, you can't see that in this chart, but we did also look at the county as well, and it's a stronger trend in Chatham compared to Barnes, the county as a whole.

[9:01] So, right now, the data source that we're using for this is called the American Community Survey.

[9:05] I know that census 2020 was partially released.

[9:10] So while we have total population counts and housing unit counts and household counts,

[9:16] we don't have more detailed information from the census yet, such as breakdown by age group.

[9:22] So we can't, that'll be the really most accurate picture to be able to look at 2000 census

[9:27] to 2010 to 2020, but because we don't have that full picture available, instead we are relying

[9:32] on what's called that American Community Survey data.

[9:35] And you can see on the percentage of the population

[9:39] that is 65 plus from 2011 to 2016,

[9:44] so we looked at five year intervals,

[9:46] and then 2021, which is the most recent year

[9:49] for which American Community Survey data is available.

[9:52] You can kind of see that steady increase

[9:54] from 35% of your population to 46%.

[9:58] And then under 18 population decreasing, although there was kind of a little bump up in 2016

[10:06] but that overall trend is trending downward.

[10:12] I thought this was interesting that the 45 to 64 also trending downward as well, and

[10:17] 18 to 44 kind of stains stable.

[10:22] But the big thing that jumps out, of course, is that general trend toward an aging population

[10:26] and more so in Chattam than the county as a whole.

[10:32] Another key finding was there was uncertainty about what

[10:37] Chattam's population projection would look like.

[10:39] And we've seen this on quite a few housing plans

[10:42] that we've recently been working on.

[10:43] It's not a lot of communities.

[10:45] Previous housing production plans were using various

[10:48] population projection methods.

[10:51] For example, the Donahoe Institute of UMass Amherst

[10:56] or boss, yep, in her, yep, MAPC, Massachusetts, I'm sorry, metropolitan area planning commission.

[11:04] They both put out these population projections for communities through 2030, and both

[11:09] of those projections anticipated that chat and would see a decrease in population through

[11:14] 2030.

[11:15] But then the last HPP pointed to another regional study that was done that actually thought

[11:20] there might be a modest increase, so it was kind of uncertain what would happen, but what we have

[11:24] in the 2020 census is that actually there has been an increase, both in total population and household.

[11:32] So part of the reason why those population projections assumed that there would be a decrease

[11:36] is because I mean, there was a pretty significant decrease from census 2000 to 2010, but that

[11:42] shifted back up. So another kind of key findings that household size was decreasing at the time

[11:50] of the last housing production plan or your current housing production plan, I should say.

[11:54] So, again, because census data for 2020 is not fully available, one of the things that it will include is average household size.

[12:01] We don't have that yet, but we can kind of estimate it by taking your total population and dividing it by your total households.

[12:07] It's important to note that's not going to be exact, though, because your population includes group quarters,

[12:12] the people in, you know, say, nursing homes or other kind of group homes settings, things like that, that are so they're not counted as being part of a household in the traditional sense.

[12:25] So we don't have that data yet from the census, but we are able to kind of just estimate and see that you can see why the HPP assumed that because the household size did decrease, but now it seems to be kind of perhaps stabilizing.

[12:42] Another key finding from the 2018 housing production plan was that overall median household income was increasing.

[12:50] However, the income for rent or households was decreasing.

[12:54] So things were likely becoming more challenging for your rent or households.

[12:59] And then, so what we've looked at for that 2021 American Community Survey data shows that there still is that kind of trend upward in median household income.

[13:11] So, the increase though is stronger for owners than renters.

[13:17] So, the median household income increased by 28% for homeowners over the last 10 years and only 18% for renters.

[13:28] And you can see just kind of how there was quite a little blip there in 2016 for the median income for renters versus in 2021.

[13:38] And that's worth noting that the estimated percent of rental households has decreased during that time as well by about 5% according to the American Community Survey.

[13:50] So you have fewer rental households, fewer rental stock available likely and you know, so kind of a more competitive market.

[13:58] Another finding that kind of led to a key recommendation in the HPP was that home values increase significantly in Chatham from 2000 to 2010, which had, you know, kind of a widening affordability gap.

[14:13] So, we wanted to look at the sales prices from 2011 to 2021, and the increase in that

[14:22] 10-year period was about 48% of a price increase.

[14:27] However, it's even more staggering in 2022.

[14:30] We don't have the full year yet because we're still in 2022, but the median sale price in

[14:35] for a single family home right now is over a million dollars and that's, you know, in 2021 it was just under a million but it has surpassed that for 2022.

[14:51] Okay, so then another key finding as we kind of wrap up on our overview of the HPP.

[14:58] So the housing production plan is...

[15:00] Really focused on increasing your stock of affordable year-round housing for what's called your subsidized housing inventory.

[15:08] And that is a list maintained by DHCD. And so the target under Chapter 40B is to have 10% of your year-round housing be affordable.

[15:20] capital A of affordable, as Gloria referred to it, and the kind of stipulation there is that it needs to be affordable to

[15:28] household earning 80% of the area median income or lower. So that's what one of the requirements for being included on the subsidized housing inventory.

[15:39] So in the 2018 plan, when that was complete, the the town had about 5% on the SHI 5.03% to be exact, and then

[15:50] And today, as of this month, and a little bit hasn't changed too much, it's 5.14%.

[15:57] So 178 units of kind of a mix of rental and ownership mostly rental, but there is significant

[16:03] ownership as well.

[16:05] So that kind of shifts come from, there were nine units added.

[16:08] Since the HPP, there was a group home with six rental units that was added, and then also

[16:14] three ownership units.

[16:15] So that's plus nine to since the plan.

[16:18] And then there were also five units that were lost through no fault of the towns.

[16:22] This is not unique to chat them.

[16:24] There were five units that had been rehabilitated with a particular program that has since

[16:30] ended.

[16:31] I'm not sure if it was a state program or federal program or if you know.

[16:35] No, I can't.

[16:36] Public federal funds administered by the Commonwealth.

[16:38] Yeah.

[16:38] Okay.

[16:39] So that program ended.

[16:40] So when those five units when their affordability restriction ended, they came off the

[16:45] that program is no longer available to continue supporting those units, and that is not unique to chat them.

[16:53] So that is kind of it for our overview of the housing production plan. I'm going to talk about what the kind of key needs were in a moment

[17:02] because we have a question about that. But I want to read this quote from the housing production plan that I think really kind of covers a lot of those needs that we just talked about.

[17:12] The convergence of these trends, and aging population, fewer young adults, very high housing prices,

[17:19] lower housing production, little housing diversity, limited supply of rentals, difficulty in obtaining affordable financing,

[17:28] and large upfront cash requirements for home ownership and rentals, all point to a challenging affordability gap.

[17:35] If these demographic and housing trends are left to evolve unchecked,

[17:39] Chatham will lose ground on its ability to be a place where individuals and families across

[17:44] a range of economic and social strata can call home.

[17:48] So our first question for you, we want to open it up both to the people in front of us

[17:55] and also virtually, do you agree or disagree with that quote?

[18:00] Are there certain elements of the quote that you think are most significant to consider

[18:04] in this process when thinking about housing for these properties?

[18:08] So they kind of, you know, in various demographic points

[18:12] or made there, and also just kind of about your housing market.

[18:16] So is there anything in that quote that resonates with you?

[18:19] You agree with, disagree with, and maybe have thoughts

[18:22] for how this opportunity that the town has

[18:25] can rectify some of those situations?

[18:28] What I'm going to do for purposes of recording,

[18:30] we were going to use chart paper, but then I realized

[18:32] that our friends online would have a hard time seeing it.

[18:34] So instead we're going to type the notes.

[18:36] So I'm going to just change my screen to a full screen of a word document so I can type

[18:42] the note so everybody can see whether they're at home or in front of us.

[18:47] So I'm just going to stop screen sharing briefly and then switch what you are going to

[18:52] be seeing.

[18:57] Okay.

[18:58] And I'm going to make that view bigger.

[19:05] Oops.

[19:06] Oh, you know what?

[19:06] I'm going to need to back out for a second.

[19:08] I've got to minimize this.

[19:18] OK,

[19:22] so that's a good idea.

[19:26] Yeah, thank you.

[19:28] All right.

[19:30] So any thoughts either from, I know,

[19:34] Katie will be helping us with any comments

[19:36] from our virtual audience.

[19:38] And then anyone here, want to weigh in?

[19:41] We have a microphone set up in the middle of the meeting room.

[19:45] So if anybody would like to comment,

[19:47] If you would come to the microphone in the middle in any folks online that would like to comment,

[19:53] if you would raise your hand and I will recognize you through Microsoft Teams.

[19:59] And I do have one hand up online.

[20:04] And one as well.

[20:06] All right, so we'll start online with Rick Levitt.

[20:11] Rick, go ahead.

[20:13] Thank you, Katie. I'm Rick Lavitt, my wife, and I live in West Chasm Center in our home

[20:21] about the Buckley property. And we certainly appreciate having this opportunity to comment.

[20:28] I'm not just going to comment on this question. I have one or two other comments and I hope

[20:35] you will indulge me in this great deal of public comment has already been received, for example,

[20:42] when the Finance Committee weighed in with a report calling for an increase supply of housing,

[20:49] both rental and owned across the spectrum of up to 200% of area median income.

[20:59] Chattam needs a mix of market rate, attainable housing, and subsidized affordable housing

[21:05] for our diverse workforce and population.

[21:13] Adam Voters approved a comprehensive plan, calling for mixing both attainable and affordable

[21:20] housing in these housing developments to avoid building another concentrated low-income

[21:26] housing project in Chattam.

[21:31] Chattam summer residents, advisory committee issued a report calling for density of 10 small

[21:39] single family homes per acre on small lots as seen in parts of chat of old village downtown

[21:48] and chat of playing behind downtown. I see Phil Richardson is on I'm sure he will be commenting

[21:55] in that and I also see that John well and is on from the finance committee and I'm sure

[22:01] will be commenting on that. I personally called for site plan and design concepts recently

[22:09] built over in Brewster and Dennis on Historic Route 6A. Both of those traditional cluster housing

[22:16] developments include single family and duplex attainable and affordable homes surrounding a village

[22:25] these successful developments were designed.

[22:30] I only have a little bit more to go, so please indulge me. A troubling aspect of the process that you are following is that only a single architectural firm has been chosen to provide site plan and design concepts, a more prudent approach from major design projects like this, frequently adopted by both public and private sectors.

[23:00] is soliciting site plan and design concepts from more than one architect.

[23:08] This should be at least three architectural firms presenting their conceptual ideas, or

[23:14] the public will be deprived of a variety of choices before deciding which concept is appropriate,

[23:21] which items need a neighbourhoods.

[23:24] Finally, I would like Union Studio to present their missing middle design concept.

[23:31] It was developed to make affordable attainable workforce housing possible in today's inflated housing market.

[23:41] Union Studios' traditional site plans and authentic two and three bedrooms single family and

[23:49] complex home designs have been adopted by numerous communities on the Cape and can easily

[23:56] be seen today.

[23:59] Union Studio presented their missing middle concept to five other towns on the Cape.

[24:06] Let's not shortcut this process.

[24:08] It's too important for Chatham's future and thank you.

[24:16] Thank you so much for that comment.

[24:18] But before I respond to any of it, I just want to ask for a couple of clarifications just

[24:22] for my own notes.

[24:24] When you talked about the housing developments along 6A, and you mentioned Brewster,

[24:29] and was the second community dentist that you mentioned, with a mix of housing.

[24:33] Thank you.

[24:34] And then when you talked about Union Studios and Missing Middle Design Concept, which

[24:39] we're familiar with, did you say single family duplex and triplex or what, can you just

[24:48] and the housing types again that you see?

[24:51] Well, yes, yes, the two in Rooster and in Dennis are single family and doplexes, but the

[24:58] middle missing concept that Union Studio has, as you well know, includes a number of different

[25:05] types of missing middle homes that can be designed for communities that fit beautifully into those communities

[25:13] rather than a large apartment buildings, or large homes on large lots.

[25:21] So I think we have an important opportunity here to see what this firm has done in other

[25:27] communities right here on the Cape, particularly on the Cape.

[25:36] Okay. Sorry, I think we had someone with a hand up over here. I'm not trying to

[25:43] to, you know, manage things too much, but I just noticed her and I wanted to make sure of

[25:46] before we went to someone else online that we recognized people in the room.

[25:50] And one house over from the meeting house property where this land is going to be developed.

[25:58] And I'm just asking for clarification on affordable housing.

[26:01] It's my understanding that there's no criteria or requirement.

[26:06] I'm sorry.

[26:07] Do you mind standing just a little bit closer to having a hard time hearing that?

[26:11] Thank you.

[26:11] I just have a basic question about affordable housing.

[26:16] And I'm asking for clarity.

[26:19] It's my understanding that there is no requirement for affordable housing residents to work

[26:26] in Chattam or even work on the Cape.

[26:30] They can get on a bus and go and work in Boston.

[26:33] I don't see how, and I understand the need for affordable housing, but I don't see how some

[26:38] of this or any of it is going to help Chattam with their problem based on there's no requirement,

[26:45] which I find really strange.

[26:48] Does Chatham have a local preference policy that includes a preference for people who work locally?

[26:56] I think our intent on these properties was as we would go through the process that we could

[27:00] weaken and likely will request the local preference of up to 70% which the local preference

[27:06] is somebody who lives here, works here, or has a child in the school system.

[27:11] And we can request up to 70%, the entire project cannot be 100% local preference, but we can

[27:19] request up to 70%.

[27:21] Okay, thank you.

[27:23] And my other question has to do with the development of what it's going to look like.

[27:30] The houses are relatively small, and my hope is that when you develop this, that you will

[27:37] keep in line with the neighborhood and the structures that currently exist.

[27:44] You know, when they cleared the land at 28 and meeting house road for the pump station,

[27:52] that was done to an extreme.

[27:56] It was done before the zoning board even heard from the abutters.

[28:00] The land had already been cleared, which is not the way to conduct business.

[28:04] So I hope that in keeping with respect to the abutters

[28:09] that those kinds of issues will be avoided going forward

[28:12] with this project, thanks.

[28:15] Thank you.

[28:15] I actually, I want to go back to a couple of the comments here

[28:21] before I call on anybody else.

[28:24] So I believe we already answered the question about local preference,

[28:29] which is helpful.

[28:31] And then to your question about whether the process will consider neighborhood context that some of what we're trying to learn from you tonight is what are the sorts of things that are very important for each parcel kind of distinct from each other, but then also as a whole for your community.

[28:48] And then I'll be kind of explaining, you know, perhaps I should have put this process

[28:53] slide earlier in the presentation, but what will happen from what we hear tonight and what

[28:57] we hear from a visual preference survey that I'll be explaining is that the architectural

[29:04] landscape firm that we're working with Dodson and Flinker, they'll be taking that input

[29:08] and creating a few different scenarios for each site.

[29:14] And then at the next meeting, they will discuss kind of the trade-offs, the feasibility, and so on, for each site.

[29:22] But, you know, I imagine you're not going to be the only person that we hear, you know, sensitivity for neighborhood context from.

[29:26] So that's an example of the type of thing that they would take into consideration and also talk about kind of the trade-offs.

[29:32] You know, does that mean fewer units? Does that mean, you know, you don't need to kind of be creative with funding sources, and so on.

[29:41] So we'll kind of make that second meeting really talk about those aspects of the feasibility

[29:47] of each.

[29:48] So I just wanted to make sure we address that.

[29:50] And then back to our first commenter who the comment about the concern with their only

[29:57] being one architectural firm as part.

[30:00] This process, and Judy, you may want to also speak about the Union Studio Work and in a moment, but just to kind of

[30:08] call anyone's concerns about that. The scenarios that Dodson and Flinker will be developing will be refined based on the feedback from the community.

[30:19] But also, what they're coming up with is not going to be a definitive plan for the site.

[30:25] The ultimate goal for this process is what we learn from the community and the concepts that

[30:32] Dodson and Flinker ultimately designs will help the town develop an RFP for the development

[30:38] of each property based on kind of criteria that comes out of that process.

[30:44] So what Dodson comes up with is not necessarily going to be what ends up on the site.

[30:49] That's going to go through a whole approval and permitting process with the town with a whole

[30:54] more opportunity for public comment and whatnot. So I just wanted to hopefully calm that concern.

[31:02] And then Judy, the Union Studio work for the missing middle design concept in the cave that's

[31:08] so they did support for the Cape Cod Commission and they had looked at different types of

[31:13] village and neighborhood areas and to sort of show what could be done to accommodate

[31:18] additional housing and one of the sites they looked at is in Orleans where we just finished

[31:23] project with Union Studio on our team to kind of plan the redevelopment of the governor

[31:28] prints property. So, you know, I think whether it's Union Studio or Dodson Plinker,

[31:34] I think the real point is we're not designing the project. We're really trying to understand

[31:39] what the concerns of the community are that need to be accommodated or accounted for in

[31:45] what might be called sort of design guidance to potential developers who will eventually come

[31:50] and actually do the project and whether they hire Union Studio

[31:54] as their architect or somebody else, we don't know.

[31:57] But what is important, I can just tell you

[31:59] because I've worked on RFPs like this before,

[32:02] is that the town needs to be able to give developers

[32:04] some sense of what the town is looking for.

[32:07] And so the beauty of a process like this

[32:09] with a landscape architect or an architect on the team

[32:12] is that they're really good at kind of translating

[32:15] what the concerns are into sort of visualization

[32:18] That will be helpful to developers eventually in a disposition process for the property.

[32:32] Yeah.

[32:32] Steve Butler.

[32:35] What you just said, I mean, I would construct some criticism about how to explain to people what's going on.

[32:42] Your presentation should have, you know, you showed the graph of the, you know,

[32:48] buying the land and then it's like where we are now and then it should have been like.

[32:52] And then this will happen, and then this will happen, and then it'll go to town meeting.

[32:58] So, and this will be your chance. Don't worry.

[33:01] This is where the concept, you know, and to let people know, because

[33:05] I think a lot of people have had experiences with the government before,

[33:11] next thing they do, they turn around, it's the fixes in.

[33:14] Oh, you missed that meeting.

[33:16] You missed it.

[33:17] Or, from what you've told us at the last session, this is what we're going to do.

[33:20] And like, no, I didn't say that, you know, or anyway.

[33:23] So if people don't attend this particular meeting,

[33:27] yes, the idea is that you don't lose your place in line

[33:31] or your object.

[33:31] So I've just suggest that perhaps at the next meeting,

[33:36] or even now if you have a graphic handy,

[33:40] that shows that maybe we were going to show it

[33:42] after this exercise here.

[33:44] That's my, I think people can understand

[33:47] that there will be plenty of opportunities for input

[33:49] And they won and and step so for and we have that graphic. Oh, but not here. Oh, okay. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, we do have that graphic. Yeah, that's that's that's my

[34:00] Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. That is an excellent point. I'll pull it up actually after we hear from

[34:09] This individual.

[34:13] Hi, I'm Megan story. I also live on meeting House Road and I just want to echo that I was on the zoning board when that

[34:20] came through for the end of middle road, and I recognize the challenge and it won't happen again.

[34:26] That's not, we're not going to clear the land without some sort of plan in place.

[34:31] And I feel very strongly about that too, so I just want you to know,

[34:35] I am on a affordable housing trust, so I have been part of this process from the beginning,

[34:38] was aware of some of the feedback that came through when that clear cutting did happen,

[34:42] because, unfortunately, for the affordable housing trust had happened at the same time as we purchased,

[34:46] the property so people assumed it was us because the property is right next door so just be

[34:50] aware that this process is going to happen as they say and that there will be a lot of input.

[34:55] I'm sure more than a lot of input from those of us on meeting house and on Main Street.

[35:02] Thank you. So let me just to Mr. Buckley's point, let me just go over kind of the

[35:08] general timeline and then we'll invite any other comments. So after this meeting we're going to

[35:15] talk about each site during this meeting and I want to kind of hear from you based on what you

[35:19] learn tonight if there's anything that you didn't know about each property, what things you

[35:23] think might be appropriate for each site. So based on what we hear from not only this meeting,

[35:29] but also from a visual preference survey that will be launched in the month of January.

[35:35] Dodson and Flinker, the landscape architectural firm that we are working with, is going to be working

[35:40] on some concepts for each site.

[35:43] We've already done site visits with Dodson Flinker

[35:45] on both properties.

[35:47] So they've already visited, walked every little bit

[35:51] of each property that they could.

[35:54] And so they have a pretty good understanding

[35:55] of what the challenges are,

[35:57] associated with each site and what could potentially be done.

[36:00] And they want to hear community input as well.

[36:03] So at that meeting, Dodson Flinker will share

[36:06] those concepts and go over kind of those trade-offs,

[36:08] feasibility of each scenario and get input on from the community about concerns they may have

[36:16] about each scenario. So then based on feedback from that and what we learn from Dodson

[36:21] flink at that time, the affordable housing trust, you know, in conjunction with the select board,

[36:27] will determine one or two concepts for each parcel that Dodson and Flink will then be refining.

[36:36] So those meetings with the housing trust and or select board, you know, those would be public meetings like any others and advertise and as part of this process discussing those scenarios and then at the third meeting which date is to be determined at this time, but those the final concepts one to two for each property would be presented to the public and the kind of reasons why that probably makes the most sense.

[37:01] And the hope, again, is that those concepts, then I'm not sure Katie, if the town's

[37:09] given thought to like who would be writing that RFP for each parcel, is it the community

[37:15] development department with the housing trust, how's that going to look?

[37:20] We've begun determining whether or not town staff will actually write that or if we'll work

[37:24] with a consultant to have that ran as well, so we've just begun to have those discussions.

[37:29] spin.

[37:30] If we need, if certainly, if we feel that we need further expertise, we will work with a consultant to do that.

[37:36] Okay, great. And so that RFP then once a developer is selected to develop the property, that's been kind of all those permitting conversations would happen.

[37:46] But the developer would be informed by this whole process.

[37:50] Okay. All right. So then there was another.

[37:53] Oh, sorry.

[37:58] Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for coming.

[38:00] Um, can you pull the mission statement up again for the housing trust?

[38:06] There's a couple of things if you can grab it again.

[38:09] Oh, I, I don't know, I, I shared a quote from the HPP.

[38:12] Right.

[38:13] That's what I'm looking for.

[38:14] Okay.

[38:21] Okay.

[38:22] So I agree with every statement that's, every sentence of that statement.

[38:26] I think some of the most important things are,

[38:28] there, the housing diversity side of of of what is lacking in

[38:32] Adam obviously rentals and housing and housing of all kinds of different kinds.

[38:39] One thing that isn't in this statement in this quote is a pathway to ownership, meaning

[38:45] a rent-to-own opportunity.

[38:48] So oftentimes we have rental, we have a Markone program in Chatham where you can rent

[38:53] the house and it's an equity bill.

[38:56] However, we've not had one single person by a house in Chattam after they fulfilled the term of their lease.

[39:04] And that's the unfortunate piece there.

[39:06] And I think that when you have young professionals or young working families in town and you have a one or two veteran apartment

[39:12] or you've got a home that is, you know, a small modest home is built and then you can rent it and then possibly own it at the end of the day.

[39:21] That's lacking in this community, it's lacking in a lot of communities, and I think that that builds on

[39:28] community sustainability, it builds on the idea that people, you know, want to participate in their community.

[39:35] And I, you know, I feel that that's a really important piece that is missing out of this.

[39:40] And when I speak to the 70%

[39:43] a preference issue, that's great.

[39:50] And providing opportunity for chat and residences

[39:52] is should be a priority for us.

[39:55] However, there's a lot of people that have moved out of town

[39:57] that have ties to the community and don't qualify

[40:00] into that at all.

[40:02] Especially as somebody who's lived here

[40:04] on my life and was my children here,

[40:07] I have had one daughter who has had the opportunity

[40:10] to be able to own a home and chat them in the other one

[40:12] lives in another town, she would never have the opportunity to move back to Chata, and they

[40:18] both fork and town, which is fortunate.

[40:22] But there's a lot of my friends, my contemporaries, that have kids that have moved out and

[40:27] moved to other parts of the Cape, and can't afford to live back in Chata.

[40:31] So I think that these kind of things are important to consider when we think about the 70%, but

[40:37] I also want to say, when somebody actually turns a key and opens a door and lives in

[40:42] in Chatham, they are a Chatham resident from that day forward.

[40:47] Thank you.

[40:50] Can I just ask, I'm sorry for clarification.

[40:52] What was the program that you mentioned that exists in Chatham, but that has not been

[40:56] any...

[40:57] I don't know any.

[40:58] Okay.

[41:04] Right.

[41:04] That's fine.

[41:05] I just...

[41:06] Curious.

[41:06] Thank you.

[41:07] We do have an online question from our comment from Tracy Cannon, and then we could go back

[41:12] to the live audience.

[41:15] Go ahead, Tracy.

[41:17] Hi.

[41:18] I'm Tracy Cannon.

[41:19] I'm the executive director of the chat, I'm housing authority, as well as the vice chair of the housing partnership.

[41:26] I just wanted to briefly, I tried, it was just trying to comment back to the first

[41:32] gal that spoke that lives on meeting house for a regarding, regarding a local preference.

[41:38] I just wanted to reassure her because I know there is a lot of misinformation out there.

[41:43] I'm the monitoring agent for the, for Lake Street apartments as well as my own housing authority.

[41:51] And Lake Street was tasked with being 75% local preference.

[41:57] And I just did their annual renewal and their at 98% local preference right now.

[42:04] So I just wanted to reassure people that even though I know there's a concern at all times that if you put

[42:13] housing in, there's going to be no stopping people from moving from off Cape Town here.

[42:19] It just organically doesn't happen.

[42:22] My housing at the housing authority is, you know, I have, you know, we have preferences,

[42:27] we have local preferences, and veteran preferences.

[42:31] And I know that it's a big concern for a lot of people out there.

[42:35] And it, it just, people don't, people don't move to the Cape to live in affordable housing.

[42:40] It just doesn't happen.

[42:41] all of the people that we lease up, in my 10 years at the housing authority, I think I've

[42:46] released up maybe three people from off-kate and they get to, and everybody gets a local

[42:54] preference.

[42:55] So if you're living in the town now, I understand where, what we're showing you is talking

[43:00] about two words, hard because people that have grown up in this town can't come back and

[43:05] buy in this town and that's very hard, but as far as the rentals that I manage are concerned

[43:11] just on a just in general it never drops ever below 75% local preference.

[43:19] And also just to you guys, if anybody has any questions regarding the Marconi project, I also run that.

[43:25] So anyway, I just wanted to reassure that the Gallic, I'm sorry to remember a name,

[43:29] but the Gall子 spoke at the beginning about the local preference because I know it's a big concern for a lot of people.

[43:34] So,

[43:38] the question here,

[43:42] is there any chance that I could come over there because my eyesight's not so hot?

[43:46] I've got a little more light.

[43:48] Oh, sure.

[43:57] Good evening everybody and happy holiday.

[44:00] Thank you for reaching out to your community and presenting an informational presentation on affordable housing attainable housing projects and chat.

[44:09] We have a few questions and I hope the housing board will respond tonight to our queries.

[44:15] Number one, in less than a month we have had two criminal crimes committed by residents of affordable housing facilities.

[44:24] One living in Lake Street complex in Chatham and one under 28 in Harwich Housing.

[44:32] One incident under investigation resulted in the death of an argument.

[44:36] And the other, in a hold-up at gunpoint, anyone living in Chatham has to consider locking their cars and homes as a result of a Lake Street resident following a man from an ATM machine in Hionis and taking his money at gunpoint.

[44:55] How can we make sure this does not become a common occurrence?

[44:59] with...

[45:00] We've been affordable housing developments. What measures have been put in place to check past police records and to process background checks? How do we ensure the safety of other residents in the affordable housing community and the rest of our town? Please give us some reassurance. We know that we have a terrific police force, but the applications for affordable lottery must have safety measures in place as well.

[45:28] Number two question, we need a clear explanation of the process used for accepting applicants for affordable attainable housing.

[45:38] We understand the monetary salary requirements and ceilings. What are the additional criteria?

[45:45] We have heard that single women and men are a lower priority compared to young adults with children.

[45:53] reason the need to compensate for the lower yearly attendance in our

[45:58] chatom school classrooms. If this is the case, it means that young singles

[46:04] working in chatom have less chance of winning the lottery. It also means

[46:09] elderly applicants are at risk of failing to move to affordable units and

[46:15] downsize from their present homes which are no longer sustainable to those

[46:19] on fixed income. Please provide us with a priority list that is used to process applicants

[46:27] as well as to make the final decisions on lottery winners.

[46:32] Number three question. We know what our taxpayer funds have purchased today. Two parcels

[46:39] of land for a little less than two million dollars. What we don't know is how much we

[46:44] have already spent on design, project manager fees, engineering fees, trustee expenses, and

[46:51] all the unknown expenses ahead.

[46:54] Do we the citizens of Chatham pay for installation of utilities, sewer, solar panels,

[47:01] laying of new roads and cut cul-de-sax, generators, air conditioning and heating and all

[47:12] building codes in place called, I believe, stretch. It will be, it will necessitate all affordable

[47:20] and attainable units and houses to be built solely for use of electric heat, cooling, and

[47:27] accessory generators. Please give us a realistic breakdown of the total costs for the two upcoming

[47:34] projects. Keeping in mind the most recent rises in the cost of building in Chadman, I realize

[47:40] that's down the road, but what are we responsible for, financially, and what would a developer

[47:49] who agrees to work on these projects be responsible for? What kind of incentives is the

[47:55] housing trust planning to offer developers to bring them into these projects? They're going

[48:01] to want to make money. This major long-term capital project will affect our tax bill directly

[48:08] as well as through continuing youths of CPA funds and free cash.

[48:13] And we need to plan for the future.

[48:15] Some on fixed income may not be able to stay in Chattam

[48:18] as these ongoing affordable housing projects will continue

[48:22] and the cost will be great.

[48:24] Finally, we request a full disclosure

[48:27] of how the town plans to deal with the required

[48:31] infrastructure for hundreds of new residents living

[48:35] in brand new houses and rental units.

[48:39] Just last week, during the Christmas stroll events,

[48:42] we had another brief power outage.

[48:45] Every source blamed it on equipment failure.

[48:48] The same company months ago, warn that we'll

[48:51] be deliberate power outages this winter

[48:54] due to a lack of enough fuel and electric resources.

[49:01] The affordable projects slated for Chadham

[49:05] will require more year-round, potable water and gas and electricity.

[49:11] At present, many of our wells are out of service for annual maintenance and testing,

[49:15] and some are not used at all during winter months as the population drops dramatically.

[49:21] That will be changed by new year-round, affordable, attainable communities.

[49:26] how are the change, how excuse me, are the town administrators and the affordable housing

[49:33] trust planning to mitigate these serious problems.

[49:37] Thank you for any answers to these inquiries.

[49:40] We want to be informed as we the taxpayers of chat, are the sponsors of this challenging

[49:46] project.

[49:47] Thank you.

[49:54] How do you want to respond?

[49:56] Sure.

[49:56] So obviously, some of those questions, you know, we certainly can't answer tonight as

[50:01] based on the fact that we haven't come up with a design proposal, we haven't crafted an RFP

[50:08] at this point in time. But I do know that there was, I believe that Tracy Cannon had

[50:15] raised her hand, and I don't know if she wanted to respond as she actually does the

[50:21] lotteries for the properties for the Marconi Programmen for the Housing Authority, so she may

[50:25] able to answer some of the lottery specific questions.

[50:29] Great, thank you.

[50:31] Hi, I don't, the lottery stuff again, if you kind of jump hands on, we need to get a little

[50:37] further down the road.

[50:38] Before we can answer how the lottery will be structured, because it depends obviously on what

[50:44] is going to go there.

[50:45] I mean, obviously, what we decide, you know, so we're at the very beginning here of trying

[50:50] to decide what's going to go in, is it going to be 80% AMI, is it going to be 120% as

[50:54] going to be 200% so all of that stuff is going to have to um is going to have to we'll have to

[51:01] be looking at that as we go along but again it's something that can be discussed and it's something

[51:07] that I encourage everybody to to give input on I think it's you know I think we can there there

[51:13] are different ways to do it basically and once we figure out what's going there we can figure out

[51:18] what we want to you know how we want to approach it from a lottery standpoint. I did want to speak

[51:22] very briefly to the crime piece, I just wanted to say that we've done studies over the years

[51:30] because that is another, I'm not going to call it a myth, but I would say it is an exaggeration

[51:36] that, you know, that this is these affordable housing brings crime. We actually asked the police

[51:42] chief of five or so years ago to do a study for us and it turned out that I believe it was less

[51:50] Just over 1% of all calls to the police station had anything to do with the Fort of War

[51:55] low-income housing.

[51:56] The gentleman that she's speaking of up on Bell Road is not a tenant.

[52:01] He's a somebody that knew a tenant up there.

[52:05] But there are, there's a, I don't know what the statistics are now that police chief could

[52:12] probably tell us, but I know that it is, I do believe it is a bit of a myth that this

[52:18] bring we'll bring crime because I know that it's not we are my neighborhood down on

[52:25] crawl road is you know it's we have minimal I mean we have a lot of it

[52:30] PMT calls, because we have an elderly population, but we have minimal police calls.

[52:36] I just want to be sure that everybody understands that that that is not bringing an affordable

[52:42] housing is not going to increase the crime rate in the time of the show.

[52:45] Anyway, thank you.

[52:47] Thank you, Tracy.

[52:48] And Chief Anderson is here if he's able to make a brief, Chief Anderson is here if he's able

[52:54] to make a brief comment.

[52:55] Thank

[52:59] you. I did bring some data from that study that Tracy referred to. It was 2017, and we looked at seven geographical areas of affordable housing in town.

[53:15] And I don't have the actual report, but I just have the basic statistics.

[53:24] There were 32,566 total calls for service townwide.

[53:33] Out of that 32,905 came from affordable housing locations.

[53:40] The affordable housing locations represent 5.85% of the police calls for service in 2017.

[53:51] So that is a very low number, affordable housing locations represent 7.7 of the criminal

[54:01] fences in town of 2017.

[54:06] If we would to do another study which I'd be happy to do, if we

[54:10] need it, I would expect those numbers to either stay the same or lower simply because

[54:16] since 2017 the overall crimes in town in general we've been a very favorable trend of low

[54:26] crime rate and decreasing crime in town.

[54:28] We've been very favorable, very lucky.

[54:31] And again, just to confirm what Tracy said,

[54:33] I can't speak for the incident in Howard,

[54:35] but I can say that the incident that was recently

[54:39] in town here, the subject involved

[54:41] was not a chatroom resident or a housing authority resident.

[54:44] He was an associate of someone on the lease there,

[54:48] so if anybody else has any questions.

[54:51] Thank you, Chief.

[54:52] Thank you.

[54:57] Are there any other comments online?

[55:00] I see Rick Levitt has his hand up.

[55:06] Thank you, Katie.

[55:07] Yeah, all of the social studies that have been made,

[55:12] and all of the studies of town planning that have been made,

[55:18] deal with this subject and deal with the problem.

[55:22] And the way it's solved is simply you have mixed income,

[55:27] housing, not housing that is all one low income

[55:32] all higher income. You mix them together. That's the brilliance of

[55:39] Chatham's comprehensive plan. It's there. Take a minute to read it. Take

[55:45] an hour to read it. But you mix when we develop as we develop as we

[55:50] should. Our need for a diverse house, a diverse workforce and population.

[56:00] we want to see a mix of incomes, not concentrated, low income or concentrated high income.

[56:11] Thank you.

[56:14] Thank you.

[56:17] We have no more hands up online.

[56:18] Okay, all right, great.

[56:20] So I'm going to go back to the presentation.

[56:24] Just to go over the next question relating to the housing production plan in particular.

[56:29] And then we'll move on to talking about each of the properties and the kind of specifics for each property.

[56:35] All right.

[56:40] I hope I am going to have to

[56:44] go back though because now I'm...

[56:46] Oh, no.

[56:46] You know what? I'm going to exit.

[56:47] I'm on the totally wrong slide from trying to skip ahead to show you the process slides.

[56:51] So just give me just a moment.

[56:55] All right.

[56:56] Now I'm on the right slide.

[57:05] Okay.

[57:05] So another thing we wanted to point out from the 2018 housing production plan that really led to a lot of the plans goals and strategies were these kind of high priorities and it boils down to four priorities in the plan.

[57:19] And we want to hear from you of this list, what do you think is the highest priority today?

[57:25] Why? And then how can the opportunities on these two properties help address these needs?

[57:31] So the 2018 Housing Production Plan found that the lack or the need for affordable year-round

[57:37] housing was a top priority, a rental housing, affordable year-round mental housing, affordable

[57:42] home ownership opportunities, home improvement resources such as deferred maintenance, lead

[57:48] remediation, septic system repair or replacement.

[57:53] And then the fourth high priority need being barrier-free, accessible units and supportive

[57:59] services to meet the needs of an aging population and those with disabilities.

[58:04] So these were the four really key needs identified in the 2018 Housing Production

[58:09] Plan.

[58:09] We would like to hear from you, are there any of those that you think today are really especially

[58:15] significant and that this opportunity with these two properties can really help address?

[58:23] And then lastly, are there any other needs not identified?

[58:27] That's what was found in 2018 is being key priorities.

[58:30] We heard some other good feedback this evening, any other needs that you would add.

[58:53] Hello, Carol McClellan, I'm chair of the Community Housing Partnership.

[59:01] Carol McClellan chair of the Community Housing Partnership.

[59:04] I would just like to say certainly that the top two items there, your me around rentals,

[59:10] and housing ownership opportunities would be top of my list.

[59:15] Obviously, from everything you've already heard and the work you've already done, the rentals are so needed and I just want to speak to a comment before about, you know, not having the town having to overspend its resources to develop the housing or even the water and not having enough water.

[59:34] And this is about our values. If we want to control how the town uses its resources, we can make lots of different choices.

[59:42] You can look in the mirror and decide if you're using personally using too much water on your lawn rather than deny someone a homeowner

[59:49] Housing, never mind home ownership or just housing. These are things we just need to do as a community and

[59:56] I had a statistic from booster that they had 70

[1:00:00] People apply for 5-1 bedroom units. I mean, the need is overwhelming. And just in regards to specifically

[1:00:07] chat on people, you know, that, you know, people in a lower-case people who live here, whether

[1:00:14] they live here, 10 years ago moved away, whether they work here, they're part of our community.

[1:00:20] We can't get hung up on this one type of pedigree that we can only have those people, and we

[1:00:26] have to build for those people specifically. Obviously, we'll include the people who are here and

[1:00:31] make sure that they're allowed to be in the lottery that they qualify, but it can't be them or no

[1:00:36] one. We have to have a bigger ten. Thank you.

[1:00:42] Thank you. Over here.

[1:00:49] Hello. I'm Janet Woodemore,

[1:00:51] 727 Main Street in Chattam. I would just like to say, I would love to see whatever we're going

[1:01:00] abilities, housing, housing will be sustainable products, and that our emphasis will be

[1:01:10] with concern for our environment, which would include a solar, and I definitely agree with

[1:01:20] of its points. I feel that just one company you mentioned is I'm a little perplexed

[1:01:32] why the town is just chosen one company. I know that many my experience in the past is that

[1:01:42] ask for input from multiple and why did the town choose Dodson if you would like to see that

[1:01:52] transparency. And my last statement is we have an aging community in Chattam and I have a lot

[1:02:07] friends who are contemporaries, and that can afford housing here, is there going to be

[1:02:17] housing for elderly included, and I love the idea that mixed use.

[1:02:23] We need a community, not with people here, people here, people there, a mixed community,

[1:02:30] mixed for a better community.

[1:02:32] That's all I have to say.

[1:02:33] Thank you.

[1:02:34] If I could just clarify that when we began the process of looking at this community engagement,

[1:02:42] the town did put out an RFP, Barrett Consulting Group, did Barrett Planning Group responded to that

[1:02:49] RFP amongst, I believe, one or two other firms. So we did go through the transparency process.

[1:02:56] We did it appropriately. We put out an RFP. They made a proposal that we thought was appropriate

[1:03:02] and when we entered into a contract with bearer planning group who was also consulting with

[1:03:08] Dodson and Flinker. So the process, the appropriate process was followed.

[1:03:23] Thank you everybody. This has been very informative for me. My name is Joan Craig and I live

[1:03:28] in West Chatham, and I am of the aging population. But I also agree with what Sharon said earlier.

[1:03:36] When I see young individuals leaving the cape moving over the bridge but working here, and I also see so many businesses in town that are either closing or shutting down Mondays and Tuesdays Wednesdays, cutting their hours during the day, during the summer.

[1:04:02] This is a destination place, we are in trouble, as is many destination places throughout and the Cape especially.

[1:04:15] I agree with the mixed individuals that could live together.

[1:04:24] I also agree with the idea that individuals who did grow up in Chatham,

[1:04:31] and want to come back to Chattam, have the ability to put their name in.

[1:04:37] I think that's something that we could look at.

[1:04:41] I'm concerned that we are in age and population, we need the youngsters.

[1:04:47] When I see the graph that you show in that, I think you said somewhere around the 18 to 40 years,

[1:04:54] it's sort of leveled off.

[1:04:55] That's a good thing.

[1:04:56] But I also think those individuals are leaving because they can't afford, they can't afford to rent here.

[1:05:05] There's nothing to rent here, let alone buy.

[1:05:08] And I also liked the idea of renting with the possible future option to buy.

[1:05:15] So that's just my comments. Thank you.

[1:05:18] Thank you.

[1:05:20] Is there anyone online with comments?

[1:05:29] Sorry, I apologize, I hit the wrong button.

[1:05:32] Yeah, it's Rick Levin again.

[1:05:38] Okay, Rick, if you will hold it for just one moment,

[1:05:39] we have someone at the microphone,

[1:05:40] and then we'll get to your question, thank you.

[1:05:43] Gloria Hicks, nine, five meeting house road.

[1:05:47] I feel very strongly that the property being developed,

[1:05:51] one house over for me, remain rental.

[1:05:55] I own a home, I know how much it costs to maintain a home.

[1:05:58] And if you're having a hard time paying rent or owning a home in Chatham, it's just unreasonable

[1:06:07] to think that people are going to keep up with the property.

[1:06:11] We already have a rat problem in the neighborhood, which I don't expect to get any better.

[1:06:17] And the town has been called about that twice.

[1:06:22] And we need some kind of a maintenance organization to be able to call to be able to contact for issues.

[1:06:31] There's already issues on the street.

[1:06:33] I mean, Chief Anderson can speak to the traffic on 137 and the speeding that goes on there.

[1:06:41] We don't have a sidewalk.

[1:06:43] There are a lot of issues in the neighborhood currently.

[1:06:47] So, it's very expensive to own a home in Chatham.

[1:06:51] So, I really hope that this remains rental

[1:06:54] because I don't see people keeping up.

[1:06:59] It's hard to keep up with property in Chatham.

[1:07:02] Thank you.

[1:07:07] If we could go to Rick Levitt

[1:07:08] and then another question from the live audience after that?

[1:07:11] I think you have actually two from the audience.

[1:07:14] Okay.

[1:07:16] Am I up, Katie?

[1:07:17] Yes, go ahead, Rick.

[1:07:19] Thank you.

[1:07:21] I obviously want to thank one of the previous speakers for mentioning me, and...

[1:07:30] The concept of mixed income. I want to stress simply that that concept is not new. It's been around

[1:07:40] for centuries. It's the authentic community that Chatham was 50, 60, 70 years ago before the changes

[1:07:52] have occurred. We had mixed income, village centers, where people live together, of all

[1:08:01] incomes. That is the path back to where we want to get to, who preserve chatams, cultural

[1:08:11] legacy. The other issues that have been brought up here are all legitimate, and they can

[1:08:17] be dealt with, but the most important issue that we're facing is deciding as a community amongst

[1:08:24] ourselves. Do we want to live together or do we want to live in a segregated community?

[1:08:33] Thank you.

[1:08:41] Just to point out with regard to socioeconomic diversity in these communities,

[1:08:45] there will be somewhat of a challenge because you have to fit it within the confines of what's

[1:08:49] legally acceptable. So I think that, you know, we shouldn't be expecting multi-million dollar houses

[1:08:56] and low-income housing in a development. And I hear a little of that, so I want to point

[1:09:00] that out. But I also think it's important to note and I have connections in both, I marry to a

[1:09:09] commercial fisherman, I work in hospitality, and I work off Cape for Google. So I have like a whole

[1:09:13] of different perspectives into what is going on with young professionals, and actually I have

[1:09:21] an elderly mother on KF2, so I think that we need to recognize that there's some thinly

[1:09:27] veiled, I'm going to call it socioeconomic discrimination happening here, and that we are very

[1:09:33] concerned about the 70% being connected to Chatham, but that doesn't look like it did 40 years ago,

[1:09:37] And I think that we need to be aware of that when we are talking about it and being inclusive,

[1:09:45] it's not going to necessarily look like only fishermen or only, you know,

[1:09:51] chatem of the 1980s.

[1:09:53] There are a lot of people here now.

[1:09:54] They've come to work at chatemars in.

[1:09:56] They make good salaries.

[1:09:57] Not enough to buy a million dollar house, but good salaries.

[1:10:00] They work in restaurants.

[1:10:02] They work in Boston.

[1:10:04] And they still don't make enough money to live here.

[1:10:06] So I just want to make sure that we are opening ourselves

[1:10:10] and being really truly inclusive and not just thinking

[1:10:13] about that 70% as sort of a chasm of the 80s,

[1:10:17] which is what I generally hear when I'm listening.

[1:10:21] Thank you.

[1:10:35] Okay, just also I want to echo what Mr. Levitt said

[1:10:39] about the mixed income, having a broad range of different AMIs

[1:10:44] and housing size in it, given you, and I wholly support.

[1:10:47] But I also want to speak to one of the previous comments about affordable housing ownership

[1:10:53] those folks being able to maintain their properties.

[1:10:56] I live in our affordable house, you can come by my house anytime and see if it needs

[1:11:00] the standards and then it might neighbors have a problem.

[1:11:04] We do have a broad range of people in this community.

[1:11:07] I know there are some people who own their own property.

[1:11:10] They're not affordable housing and the town has to do a lot to try to get them to take care of their property.

[1:11:16] It's come up many times at different boards.

[1:11:19] So it doesn't matter whether you're in a photo housing,

[1:11:22] or if you're a private citizen,

[1:11:24] different people have different perspectives

[1:11:25] on what they want to do with their homes.

[1:11:28] And I would say that for the most part,

[1:11:31] those in a photo housing are under more scrutiny,

[1:11:33] and are more aware of the fact that if they have something

[1:11:37] out there long or something, someone's

[1:11:39] going to call a complaint, where is the private citizen

[1:11:42] can do whatever they want and nobody complains about it.

[1:11:45] But there's certainly a lot of folks

[1:11:46] out there that do that, and I think it's inappropriate to target people because they're lower

[1:11:52] income that they're not going to be good stewards of their property.

[1:11:55] Thank you.

[1:11:57] Thank you.

[1:12:01] One suggestion about a need is that the relating to a lot of the transparency and public engagement.

[1:12:10] I would suggest that there have been other projects in the past where a dedicated web page

[1:12:17] has been set up and so that people don't have to figure out, well, do I go to this committee

[1:12:22] or do I go here or where do I find it on the web site, even if there was a dedicated web

[1:12:28] page, then yes, everybody could land there, there could be concept drawings, what happened

[1:12:34] that the last meeting, the PowerPoint from tonight's meeting, maybe perhaps an email alert

[1:12:41] function, so every time something was added to the web page, you get an email to

[1:12:47] I use something new is there, and you won't get lost in the shuffle and so forth and so on.

[1:12:52] So I think, because I think the domain enemy to a lot of this going through is the fact

[1:12:58] when people get confused, they say no.

[1:13:03] And so at the more they know and the more you can make it understandable, what's the difference

[1:13:07] between a affordable and attainable?

[1:13:09] Oh my goodness, you know, there's just a whole lot of stuff to confuse people.

[1:13:12] So anything to make it more transparent and more clear

[1:13:16] to the average person, I think is more people

[1:13:19] buy into it that much sooner.

[1:13:22] So that's my second question.

[1:13:22] Thank you.

[1:13:24] Thank you.

[1:13:26] Thank you, sir.

[1:13:26] And then that is something that we had anticipated

[1:13:28] that we would be doing as we move forward

[1:13:31] is to have a dedicated website for the projects

[1:13:35] as we move them forward.

[1:13:36] We do have another hand raised online, Tracy Cannon.

[1:13:42] Hi, I just wanted to speak really quickly

[1:13:43] what Megan was just saying about the different, I'm noticing it's a really big, a new

[1:13:52] thing.

[1:13:52] I've been in this for 10 years and I'm noticing a really, really, a really difficult new

[1:13:57] thing.

[1:13:57] And that is the workers that she was talking about, I have multiple families, I've actually

[1:14:04] got three families right now that I'm working with, that are making too much money to live

[1:14:09] in my housing.

[1:14:10] So they're over 80% AMI.

[1:14:14] They are one as a personal care home health care aid,

[1:14:19] works in the nursing home.

[1:14:21] One is somebody who works in a kitchen and we cross it.

[1:14:24] These are like just classic like, you know, mainstream,

[1:14:29] chatem workers.

[1:14:31] And but they're working really, really, really hard.

[1:14:34] And they're making a really good living.

[1:14:38] but it's too much money to live in my housing but it's not enough to be able to afford anything.

[1:14:45] So I think that's where you get when you start to get into that, that's a whole,

[1:14:49] that's a whole demographic that we need to be very sensitive to.

[1:14:53] I've never seen anything like it before.

[1:14:55] I've never ever seen the wave that I'm seeing right now as people that are able to make money.

[1:15:00] And there are enough to make more than 80%, but they, even though they're up at maybe 100%, they can't afford to live here, because there's nothing for anybody in that in between place.

[1:15:15] So I just want to be sure that they're considered, you know, that that is considered in deciding what, you know, who goes in where this whole mix, I love the idea of the mixed, you know, the mixed income population.

[1:15:28] but that's a facelake growing need, I think, in the sound.

[1:15:35] Thank you. And we talk about each of the properties in a couple minutes.

[1:15:40] I'm glad you made that point because we will talk about that definition of affordable,

[1:15:44] which for one of the properties in particular, all of the units would need to fit that definition.

[1:15:49] But for the other, there's more flexibility. So I'm glad you brought up that point. Thank you.

[1:15:55] And we have Rick Lebett again with his hand up, Rick, did you just, is your hand up or did you not put it down from the last time?

[1:16:03] No, no, my hand is up.

[1:16:05] I don't want anything.

[1:16:07] I just wanted to briefly comment on Tracy's comment.

[1:16:11] She's absolutely right.

[1:16:14] One of the things about the Brewster Landing Project over in Brewster was 28 homes.

[1:16:19] Eight of them were so-called affordable homes and 20 were so-called attainable homes.

[1:16:27] The affordable homes sold for $200,000.

[1:16:30] That was three or four years ago they'll be a little higher now.

[1:16:34] But that family you were talking about Tracy could easily afford a $200,000 home,

[1:16:40] earning the income that they were earning.

[1:16:42] So that's where we're going.

[1:16:46] It's a, I call it a pregnant concept.

[1:16:50] It's a wonderful concept.

[1:16:52] It's new, except that it is very, very old.

[1:16:58] We've done it here throughout the centuries in Shadow.

[1:17:02] Mixed income families living together.

[1:17:08] Thank you.

[1:17:09] Thank you.

[1:17:10] I think there was one more comment.

[1:17:11] And then we'll just for time sake, we'll move on to a discussion of each property.

[1:17:17] Hi, I just wanted to address one of those points that you had there.

[1:17:25] You talk about mixed economic diversity, which is wonderful, but nobody's really addressing

[1:17:33] people with disabilities and barrier free is wonderful, you know, bringing in different

[1:17:42] economic situations as diversity, but so does capabilities.

[1:17:48] Just because you have a ramp or a little sidewalk barrier does not make an apartment accessible,

[1:18:00] stairs, toileting, showering, they're a big barrier in people may not be able to find that

[1:18:08] in the community here with rentals or housing, and if they do, they have to put it in

[1:18:15] themselves, which is a large economic burden on them.

[1:18:19] We have, as you've cited in aging population, they may need these fixtures in place, and

[1:18:28] would have to leave or go to more of an institutional type of housing which they may not need

[1:18:35] that specialized care but they just can't access their their bathroom correctly and and changing

[1:18:43] a home dynamics may not be feasible in these older homes. So I think that really needs to be

[1:18:50] looked at and addressed to me that's a large concern especially with an aging population but also

[1:18:58] with a younger population, where if there's a younger person in a home that is aging out and

[1:19:05] would like to be independent, they can't afford to be here in Chatham with an ADA accessible

[1:19:11] housing.

[1:19:13] Thank you.

[1:19:14] Thank you.

[1:19:16] Okay.

[1:19:17] All right.

[1:19:17] These are all very helpful comments, and I think we will move on now to taking a look at each

[1:19:25] the properties, and I'll try to be as brief as I can, just out of respect for your time,

[1:19:31] but also because a lot of these specifics of the existing conditions on each site will

[1:19:36] be gone over more in the second meeting when Dodson and Flinker talks about kind of why

[1:19:41] there may be limitations on each site, and why that's going to kind of control what can be done

[1:19:45] as well.

[1:19:45] So, okay. All right,

[1:19:55] so first we're going to talk about the main street property. As Gloria pointed out earlier, I won't run through all this again because she already discussed it.

[1:20:04] But this was authorized in town meeting by town meeting in 2021 and then the town closed on the sale recently in November.

[1:20:15] So there's quite a process there, but this property is the first one that we will be discussing.

[1:20:21] We did a site walk on Monday actually.

[1:20:26] So there are some kind of differences between these properties that are important to note.

[1:20:29] So the main street property is relatively flat compared to the meeting house road property.

[1:20:34] So I'll show you kind of those differences.

[1:20:36] It does kind of slope slightly down from the road toward the back of the property.

[1:20:40] And in terms of uses, there are varying uses around the property.

[1:20:44] So both sides, on one side, it's directly abutting the property and on the other, it's a couple of properties down, but there's motels,

[1:20:53] abutting our near both sides across Main Street, there's well-in-way apartments, which are small, multi-family.

[1:20:59] Both sides of Main Street, a little ways down, are zoned for some commercial development.

[1:21:05] And then behind the lot, there's a lot of single-family subdivisions that you'll see in a moment.

[1:21:10] It is zoned as residential 20, which the big thing there is the minimum lot size is 20,000 square feet.

[1:21:17] And so, depending on the permitting route that the town goes for the property, these zoning parameters may not need to be adhered to.

[1:21:26] However, it is helpful for understanding neighborhood context.

[1:21:29] You know, it kind of built environment around you.

[1:21:32] This property is currently sewered, and it is in a historic business district.

[1:21:37] So, just kind of looking at the property here, so this, you'll see more, we look at the meeting house road property.

[1:21:48] The fact that these lines here that indicate depth of the property, these topography lines, are based fairly far apart,

[1:21:57] shows that it's not any sort of steep drop on the property, so that is one thing to keep in mind that can make kind of development a bit less challenging.

[1:22:05] And then these darker red areas that I mentioned, these are the areas that are currently

[1:22:09] zoned as commercial, but then behind the property you can see, you know, kind of just

[1:22:14] a lot of residential subdivision.

[1:22:17] So there's kind of a variety of uses going on around the property.

[1:22:24] So with some of that in mind, what types of housing, and we heard a lot about this already in

[1:22:29] in terms of the...

[1:22:30] A lot of comments about having kind of mixed housing types, mixed income levels, things like that. But given kind of the context of the built environment around it, is there any kind of housing type in particular that you think might be most appropriate for this site?

[1:22:46] And what should be taken into consideration when planning for this site? I know we kind of touched on a lot of that already, but thinking about this site in particular if there's any specifics.

[1:23:08] Joan Craig again certainly don't want a four story anything.

[1:23:15] I like the presentation of Lake

[1:23:18] Street. I've always found that that is a really nice looking area and the individuals

[1:23:26] that live there to my knowledge as I go by often. Keep it nice and I like the fact that

[1:23:36] That type of setup, sort of like townhouse attached townhouse, I guess, would fit very well

[1:23:44] in the property at the Buckley property.

[1:23:48] I think something like that would look very good.

[1:23:50] I don't think it has to be long.

[1:23:55] I think it can be situated in such a way that the townhouses fit to the property lines.

[1:24:05] So, that's one thing I think that we could consider.

[1:24:10] I know there are motels, some of which quite frankly are not that attractive.

[1:24:17] However, perhaps by doing something attractive next door that we're talking about here,

[1:24:23] that maybe some of those would be upgraded also.

[1:24:26] So, I think something like that would certainly fit very well into the property.

[1:24:33] Thank you, and can I just to clarify, do you say Lake Street?

[1:24:37] Okay, thanks.

[1:24:43] Sorry, Megan, again.

[1:24:44] I know people love the historic district downtown.

[1:24:49] Sing family on time lots.

[1:24:51] This particular property might be well suited for that.

[1:24:54] I'm not an architect or a land designer, so I don't know.

[1:24:57] But because it can be mixed income, it might be appropriate for sort of single family affordable housing, in which case we could maybe.

[1:25:05] make it look like what everybody loves about child and that's sort of beautiful end of mainstream

[1:25:11] perfect little cute neighborhood. Can you just say the name of the property, okay?

[1:25:24] Yeah

[1:25:32] I Steve Buckley, a executor of the Joseph P Buckley state which sold two and a half acres

[1:25:41] to the town. And I certainly, yes, when there was an RFP for affordable housing, it's been

[1:25:50] something that I've been thinking about for a long time. So I didn't want to jump in first

[1:25:56] as far as what goes there. But in a grew up in China, but spent 25 years in Washington DC area,

[1:26:04] in which case I lived in garden apartments, garden condos, which are very nice, and which

[1:26:12] allowed for big open areas, and but we also lived my wife and I and our two small children

[1:26:19] at that time lived in townhouse, brand new townhouse development in Buuy, Maryland, and they

[1:26:25] look very nice and say they even look nicer than the ones that are in Chattam, so townhouse

[1:26:32] developments attached, can look very classy, I like to think we were very fond of the space

[1:26:38] we had there.

[1:26:39] In fact, we had more space in our townhouse, three-level, three-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bath

[1:26:45] townhouse than the single-family homes in Bowie, Maryland, which had no basement.

[1:26:52] So, they were people come over and say, wow, you have more space than we do.

[1:26:55] So, anyway, yes, so that's one thing that I would think.

[1:27:02] and the advantage people like single-family homes and so the idea that even if you put them

[1:27:09] really close together they don't want to touch because something when they touch at least but

[1:27:15] to have an alley if you put them together it's all the more room for the kids to play and for the

[1:27:22] beat of Rome that's what that's my always envision that and personally I would like to see something

[1:27:26] where when people when I drive by and when people drive by that property and the future they look

[1:27:31] and they see kids playing in the front, like there's a green area in the front and he moved

[1:27:38] the houses to the back and they can touch to make room for that area there to be able

[1:27:42] to do that so whether it's kids playing or yard sales or something like that people look

[1:27:45] over and they see that they see all of this a bunch of people doing stuff over there gives

[1:27:50] you that sense of community and the fact that it shows that it's vibrant I don't want to see

[1:28:01] But Phil Richardson, who you see there on the screen,

[1:28:06] came up with a concept design.

[1:28:09] He put his own money into a concept design

[1:28:11] for the 10, what could happen on one square acre of land.

[1:28:17] But he also, at my request, about a year ago,

[1:28:20] I said, what would it look like?

[1:28:21] What if you took that concept design

[1:28:24] and applied that to this two and a half acres?

[1:28:27] So somewhere, and that would be something just

[1:28:31] And they're not townhouses, so, but it's a starting point to show people that it doesn't

[1:28:36] have to look like affordable housing, it doesn't have to look bad, it can look nice.

[1:28:41] In fact, I think it looks more like Chattam, makes it look more like Chattam because a

[1:28:46] lot of the housing that's gone in in the past, well, 20 or 30 years looks less like Chattam

[1:28:53] than I grew up here.

[1:28:54] So, if you want to go back and capture the character of Chattam, I think, that's one place

[1:28:58] to start.

[1:28:59] And I think it was presented to the board of select, I'm sorry, the select board about a year and a half or two years ago, and they seem to like the concept as nice.

[1:29:09] So if that two and a half acre PDF drawing could be put up on that website as just a to show people, oh, that looks pretty good.

[1:29:21] And it's actually for this particular property. So it's not set in stone and I don't say what say don't.

[1:29:27] don't say this is what's going to happen. It's just one concept design. Thank you.

[1:29:32] Thank you. And I think it is very helpful. We've seen those concepts and shared them with our team.

[1:29:37] And it is helpful. I think for visualizing what can fit. So that.

[1:29:43] Okay. Thank you. Any other comments about?

[1:29:49] Oh, sure.

[1:29:51] Oh, yeah. Sure. Could we just hear from Phil.

[1:29:57] Go ahead, Phil, I think you just need, I think you...

[1:30:00] Just need to unmute, Phil.

[1:30:09] Okay. Hello. Yeah. That's good to talk to you guys. I've been talking to him about his property. And I'm from California and out here, a density is necessary because we have some pretty big communities. So I thought that for Shaddam, the main thing to do is that people would like to live in a single family houses.

[1:30:32] So I just picked 10 units in acre as a density number and I had when I architect out here

[1:30:39] design a project for Steve's property and they're all cake-con houses and they're all around

[1:30:46] 1200 square feet and we put 20 fillet above them on Steve's property and they're two,

[1:30:53] one thing to be, they can be two, three and four bedroom and they're all within the concept developed

[1:31:01] So I'm like my architect.

[1:31:03] And we also included a little farmer's area.

[1:31:07] And most of the houses surround a little common area too.

[1:31:11] So yeah, I'm not saying this is what should be done,

[1:31:14] but it's kind of stuff I think is good for Chad

[1:31:16] and because it's a single family houses

[1:31:18] and they're too story, they're not taller than too story.

[1:31:22] And everybody has their own yard and their own property.

[1:31:25] So I think that would be something where

[1:31:27] that would be at least one type of project you look at.

[1:31:31] And in general, we have to either do affordable, I mean, single family or rental, and then you can get rental,

[1:31:41] you can get more density with rental.

[1:31:45] So, the Arcanics Club, a lot of issues to deal with.

[1:31:50] But we will probably have a living in the amount of land, even though we're doing very well right now.

[1:31:57] So the density is an issue and the style of the house is an issue and the diversity of

[1:32:06] bincom is also another issue. So if we have a property like meeting house, which is now

[1:32:13] according to the purchase process, it's going to be all affordable. A affordable, that might be

[1:32:19] something that maybe we could somehow have adjusted. So thank you very much.

[1:32:24] And so I think we're on a road here for Chattam and I hope we can get something done soon.

[1:32:34] Thank you. And just to clarify and fill, thank you for bringing this up as well.

[1:32:40] Again, that contrast between the meeting house road property and this main street property is that for this property 50% of the units would need to be capital A affordable because it was funded 50% by the affordable housing trust.

[1:32:54] And then the remaining 50% would be that kind of attainable definition.

[1:32:58] And there was the point made that the town should be very transparent and clear about what that means.

[1:33:02] I believe in the RFP, and that was up to 200% of area median income was kind of the town's definition of what attainable would look like.

[1:33:11] So for this main street property, it'd be a mix of that capital A affordable, and then also up to 200% potentially.

[1:33:26] I just want to point out, for one, my preference almost always is I lean more towards

[1:33:32] home ownership opportunities, but I think on this particular site, I would be an advocate

[1:33:41] for doing density, attractive density, whether it's the townhouses or something like

[1:33:45] fills plan, but I also want to make sure I would like for this property to have

[1:33:51] some rentals and some one bedrooms.

[1:33:54] I think we need single bedroom units there.

[1:33:57] So if you mix it all up, that would be great.

[1:34:00] But I would really be disappointed if this particular parcel

[1:34:04] didn't have some rentals and or the single bedroom

[1:34:09] really important, I think, because there are a bunch of people

[1:34:12] that are really not getting any opportunities here.

[1:34:17] And I think there's a demand.

[1:34:18] And I think as much as we idealize what we'd like all this to look,

[1:34:20] Like we need to look at the data and to see who is in need of housing, not just what we idealize

[1:34:26] this property to be, because we're here to serve the need, not to just imagine something that's beautiful.

[1:34:33] I think we can do both and create an attractive property that can meet the need.

[1:34:37] But I want to make sure that we address the concerns that people have who who are in need of housing,

[1:34:42] not those of us who are just sitting here thinking about what would be good for housing.

[1:34:45] Thank you.

[1:34:47] Thank you.

[1:34:52] So we do have one hand up online, Rick Levitt.

[1:34:58] Yeah, thank you.

[1:35:00] This is an excellent discussion.

[1:35:01] It's been a really an outstanding discussion.

[1:35:04] I agree with the previous speaker.

[1:35:07] We need to have an entire mix.

[1:35:13] Both fill a mix of homes to serve the needs of our working population and our non-working population.

[1:35:23] Phil Richardson and I and Steve Buckley and I and Steve and I were neighbors as I mentioned

[1:35:31] that I have my property, a butts, the Buckley property.

[1:35:36] Yeah, we want to see a higher density development there.

[1:35:42] Single family homes, town homes as Steve said, the previous speaker just mentioned one

[1:35:51] bedroom homes over in Brewster, on Brewster Landing.

[1:35:56] They don't have one bedroom homes, but they have two bedroom homes,

[1:36:00] and three bedroom homes.

[1:36:03] So how and of Village Green, where the kids can play,

[1:36:07] and can be seen, the homes surrounded.

[1:36:11] So you can have single family homes small, 1200 square foot homes

[1:36:16] like Phil has described, excellent.

[1:36:18] they can go up to 1,500 to 1,600 square feet. I lived in Boston for 10 years in an apartment

[1:36:25] of 1,000 square feet. So we don't need big homes on big lots. We need smaller homes

[1:36:33] and smaller lots that serve the needs of our community and what I would like to see is what

[1:36:40] Phil and Steve Buckley have said developed on the Buckley property. Something very much similar

[1:36:47] to what's been developed over at Brewster Landing in Brewster.

[1:36:52] Thank you.

[1:36:55] Thank you.

[1:37:01] Just a very quick comment on the rentals, which I agree.

[1:37:05] I've spent a lot of time talking to 30 and 40

[1:37:08] year olds who work in the medical fields.

[1:37:11] Some of them travel.

[1:37:13] Some of them are not here all the time.

[1:37:15] Some of them work in the hospital for a year

[1:37:18] and then go to another hospital and another location.

[1:37:20] So they're all looking for rentals.

[1:37:23] I've talked to many, many people that work at CBI and other restaurants at CBI a lot of...

[1:37:30] People that work there pay $150 a month for a very small bedroom situation. If you multiply that, you can figure out what they could pay for a whole year. That's not a lot of money. Is it even possible?

[1:37:53] But the point being, can affordable housing, can we build new affordable housing that we can rent

[1:38:03] for that less, that little money because there is that need.

[1:38:07] No question about it.

[1:38:08] There's a big need within that lower price range and there are hard workers and some of them have

[1:38:14] two jobs, some of them work CBI, some hours, and then they go over and work CBS, the rest

[1:38:19] of the time, they barely get any sleep, they have to sign contracts, stay here for three

[1:38:24] years, and if they go back to their Jamaica or wherever, they really live, they have to pay

[1:38:30] for it.

[1:38:31] So keep that in mind on this rental and affordable housing issue.

[1:38:36] Thank you.

[1:38:42] Thank you.

[1:38:43] All right.

[1:38:43] So, I am going to move on and just give a brief overview of the meeting house road property,

[1:38:53] which again, a key difference there.

[1:38:54] I'd like to...

[1:38:56] Excuse me.

[1:38:56] I'd like to make one comment about the previous speaker.

[1:39:00] Very briefly.

[1:39:03] Okay.

[1:39:05] Thank you.

[1:39:06] Absolutely.

[1:39:07] As Shireen Davis said, a little earlier in the program this evening, it's possible to have

[1:39:13] Some of these homes, single homes, or attached homes, townhouses, be rental properties.

[1:39:20] The town can own them, they can buy them from the developer, and rent them to the people

[1:39:27] who need rentals, and even in a rent to own wonderful program like the Marconi program.

[1:39:34] Is it all very possible?

[1:39:36] Thank you.

[1:39:38] Thank you.

[1:39:40] Question?

[1:39:49] I'm Jeff Fugelstead, if you get the trend of part of the theme, I was a banker for 34 years.

[1:39:59] My objective in dealing with all sizes of companies and with people is I need to get

[1:40:06] repaid that was that was a just of it.

[1:40:09] Now, with regard to rentals, we've talked to several people in my life and I who don't

[1:40:15] think they'll ever be able to move here because of the amount of money that's necessary

[1:40:22] to live or rent by et cetera.

[1:40:25] What is your estimate of what it would cost a family to live in a rental or to buy a house

[1:40:35] that was two to three hundred thousand dollars to build?

[1:40:38] Do you have information on math subject?

[1:40:43] We're actually not.

[1:40:45] It's a fair question and actually we're not doing a feasibility study at this point.

[1:40:50] So we really don't have the data to answer that.

[1:40:53] You know, I can certainly tell you that based on work we just finished with the town of

[1:40:57] Orleans, for the Governor Prince property, we were involved in that as well, that there's

[1:41:02] a real challenge here in the lower end-out or Cape areas in terms of trying to create that

[1:41:10] level of affordability, without some pretty significant subsidy support from state or

[1:41:16] federal programs.

[1:41:19] So reaching the people who actually work in hospitality, you're just

[1:41:24] any sort of local employment here, it's a real challenge, and that's going to be the

[1:41:29] same whether people are trying to move here from another community, but they're in that

[1:41:33] time range?

[1:41:35] Well, in my estimation, the amount of money is key.

[1:41:40] Yes.

[1:41:40] A family has to be making so much.

[1:41:43] The other question I have is, there seems to be a two-themed approach to housing and

[1:41:49] town.

[1:41:50] One is for young people who wish to send their children to school, and the other is for seniors

[1:41:58] who would wish to stay here.

[1:42:01] What is the idea, what are your ideas with regard to where people who have school-aged children,

[1:42:09] where they would live, how what kind of communities would they be a part of?

[1:42:15] Do you have any comments on that?

[1:42:17] Well, I think that's what we're trying to find out from you folks actually is how you see those.

[1:42:21] As planners, yes, we have thoughts on it, but it's not our property, it's not our town,

[1:42:26] and we're trying to find out what you folks want to see.

[1:42:28] And what kinds of environments you think are appropriate for different types of household needs.

[1:42:34] I will just want to point out because you're absolutely right about people have to be able to afford.

[1:42:39] Whatever the housing is that they're seeking to rent her buy, but the developer in order to build the housing has to get a bank loan from somebody to build it.

[1:42:47] So, you know, long before anyone is as applying to a lottery to rent her own a house, there is this basic feasibility assessment that has to be done.

[1:42:57] by the developer, and by whoever the lender is going to be, or lender is, are going to be for that project.

[1:43:04] So, you know, this is a big hurdle that anything of these projects are going to have to go through.

[1:43:09] It's not just about what they look like, and it's really not even just about who are the populations we're trying to serve.

[1:43:15] It's how do you make the construction of a project affordable in this environment, and then what can you actually expect to attain for rents or sale prices, and you have to close a gap somehow.

[1:43:26] somehow. And that gap is either closed by local funds or state funds or federal funds or some

[1:43:32] source that's going to close those gaps and make a feasible project.

[1:43:36] Understood. However, the bottom line, again, is finance. Of course.

[1:43:41] With regard to various developments, various houses, various townhouse approaches,

[1:43:47] there's got to be a bottom line. Yep. And that should be presented to this group.

[1:43:54] There should be an idea that says 200,000 to support a home and a family.

[1:44:03] That should be key to getting the discussion off the ground.

[1:44:08] Thank you.

[1:44:09] Thank you.

[1:44:14] Yep.

[1:44:15] Okay.

[1:44:16] So for the meeting house road property,

[1:44:21] where is my mouse?

[1:44:30] Oh, there we go.

[1:44:31] Okay.

[1:44:31] So just a reminder, a key difference with this property is that the units on this property

[1:44:37] would be 100% affordable.

[1:44:39] Now what that income threshold would look like, I think, is that's not determined.

[1:44:44] So that it would need to be, you know, by definition, for the affordable housing trust,

[1:44:50] Katie, I believe the parameters we had talked about was no more than 100% AMI.

[1:44:55] But if it was up to if it was at that level it wouldn't necessarily wouldn't go on

[1:45:00] On the subsidized housing inventory. And the town is aware of that. But at least it's addressing any. So that's one thing to consider. But so these units, all of them, would have to be up to that point. It could certainly be lower than that one hundred percent AMI. But as duty just mentioned, there's a lot of kind of project feasibility questions that would need to come into play before anything is built.

[1:45:24] So again, because this was acquired exclusively with housing trust funds, all of the units on this property would be affordable unlike the main street property.

[1:45:34] And so I know Gloria already went over this background, but again, just I want to point out it's about three and a half acres.

[1:45:42] And one thing that's also noteworthy here, just to point out, there's not much that while the town kind of lost that that acreage that they assumed originally was part of the property.

[1:45:53] The rail trail goes right through here, and so, and there's a lot of kind of challenging

[1:45:59] topography in this area as well.

[1:46:02] So, that's, you know, one thing to keep in mind, that even though that part of the property

[1:46:05] is no longer included, that likely wouldn't have been where development would be focused anyway.

[1:46:11] So, just some kind of key points about this property, unlike the Main Street property,

[1:46:15] which we mentioned, was relatively flat with that kind of gentle slope toward the back.

[1:46:19] The topography here is more varied.

[1:46:22] There's a lot of elevation changes, more pronounced on the front portion of the lot that

[1:46:27] I'll show you on a map in just a minute, and then it so it kind of drops down and then

[1:46:31] goes up but it becomes flat.

[1:46:34] And so that's kind of going to be interesting to figure out the access for where the access

[1:46:41] will come into the parcel, but that's where our friends at Dobson and Flinker will come

[1:46:47] and tell us what's possible.

[1:46:49] So this unlike the main street property which did kind of have a variety of uses and zoning around it.

[1:46:55] This is really surrounded primarily with residential uses.

[1:46:58] And we had a member of our audience today point out that's kind of a lot of smaller homes and kind of, you know,

[1:47:02] being aware of the neighborhood context there.

[1:47:05] It does also about some kind of on conservation lands in the rear.

[1:47:11] So while I did say it's primarily residential, there is some kind of mix there.

[1:47:15] There's a property next to it that's mixed use with a medical facility and an apartment.

[1:47:21] And then kind of down the road on meeting House Road, there is an industrial zone park.

[1:47:29] So this is residential 60, which is, you know, larger lot sizes in the main street property.

[1:47:34] Again, depending on the permanent route, the town goes through.

[1:47:38] The zoning may not apply to what gets developed on this site, but it's good for understanding

[1:47:42] that neighborhood context.

[1:47:45] So you can see here compared to the main street property

[1:47:50] where these elevation lines were much more spread out.

[1:47:54] The fact that they're so close here indicates kind of steeper changes

[1:47:57] in your topography because those lines are placed every time

[1:48:01] there's a change three meters about 10 feet in elevation.

[1:48:06] So the closer they are, the steeper, the changes.

[1:48:10] It looks like I don't have the whole parcel here,

[1:48:12] but you can see they start to get more spread out.

[1:48:14] So it does get a higher elevation in the back,

[1:48:16] but it becomes much more flat.

[1:48:19] And then back here, this is that conservation land.

[1:48:22] I was mentioning, I'm sorry, I know if you're on the computer,

[1:48:25] you won't be able to see my little laser pen,

[1:48:27] and it looks like my mouse isn't showing up either,

[1:48:29] but right behind the property to the west

[1:48:33] is conservation land, the trying field.

[1:48:37] And that's that industrial zoning,

[1:48:39] that gray area that I mentioned,

[1:48:40] But the rest of this is zone for residential, so you can see all of those kind of single-family home subdivisions.

[1:48:52] So, now looking kind of considering, again, that this would be 100% affordable, considering kind of the uniqueness of the geography.

[1:49:02] There's nothing on it right now.

[1:49:05] The proximity to the rail trail.

[1:49:07] There's actually like parking for the rail trail.

[1:49:09] I want to say it's right across the way.

[1:49:11] So that is just beautiful. We walked at the other day.

[1:49:16] I'd like to hear what you think makes sense for this site.

[1:49:38] Yeah, I would love to see home ownership on this property.

[1:49:42] Single family homes, dense, obviously very attractive.

[1:49:46] I think we could make a really nice neighborhood there.

[1:49:50] But I would certainly wouldn't be opposed if you ended up doing rentals there.

[1:49:54] But I think it would be well suited in the neighborhood to be single family homes.

[1:49:57] And I'd rather do more rentals over at the public property,

[1:50:01] but those are my thoughts.

[1:50:03] Thank you.

[1:50:06] Yes, come on.

[1:50:14] Gloria Hicks again at 95 Meaning House Road.

[1:50:17] I'm one house over from this property.

[1:50:20] And the geography is challenging,

[1:50:23] and I'm very curious how it's going to be handled.

[1:50:26] From 1.37, it dips down.

[1:50:29] There's an easement road that two of us on that street own.

[1:50:37] How are you going to get into the development?

[1:50:40] Hopefully it's a directly from Route 137, because I'll lose a lot of

[1:50:44] front-age, a lot of privacy, it increases a lot of traffic, noise, and problems for

[1:50:52] me, and my neighbors.

[1:50:55] So I'm very curious as to how you're going to handle that dip in the road.

[1:51:00] And we'll be able to address that better when the landscape architects join us for the next meeting.

[1:51:06] Okay, thank you.

[1:51:07] Yeah, and so we walked at Gloria, Peter Flinker, and myself, we walked the property.

[1:51:12] And you're right, it is quite a dip, and then it goes back up.

[1:51:16] And so that is, you know, that's a challenge that Peter and his concepts will take into consideration.

[1:51:23] And that's, again, the beauty of having multiple concepts to discuss and kind of see what makes the most sense.

[1:51:28] And also I think public safety and what not would have to be part of that conversation because

[1:51:31] the access, you know, there are certain parameters that would have to be met for wherever

[1:51:36] the housing ends up being built on the lot, whether it ends up being built toward the back

[1:51:39] and there's, you know, an access road that has to get to it, just because that's where it's

[1:51:43] more flat, or anything else that have to, that'd be a, you know, a conversation that would

[1:51:48] need to be had with other key parties in town.

[1:51:51] And again, just keeping the housing in line with the neighborhood, the houses are not large.

[1:51:56] And we have a lot of privacy right now with trees and whatnot, and I really feel strongly as I said before about having a management company, keeping these so that we have a contact person because there are already existing issues in the neighborhood.

[1:52:13] Thank you.

[1:52:14] Thank you.

[1:52:16] Yeah, the trees, that's an excellent point because there is nothing on the property right now, unlike Main Street, and that's a consideration of what will be cleared.

[1:52:26] With regard to the kind of neighborhood context, we talked a lot about that on our site work.

[1:52:32] Very quick comment, because of the elevations, I assume the architects will probably come up with something where they use that elevation.

[1:52:42] When you build on a hill, you actually kind of get a free lower level, which if done well and attractively.

[1:52:50] So your frontage could be on the road with a more colonial look and looking out into the woods could be a lower level.

[1:52:59] So it's a very reasonable way to build.

[1:53:03] And I'm sure he'll take that into account.

[1:53:12] I think it would be important to have access to the by-trail.

[1:53:16] And also the Twainfield is passive recreation,

[1:53:19] even though it's conservation land and access to the Twainfield.

[1:53:22] I think that that will balance out some green and open space

[1:53:26] that the neighborhood might need.

[1:53:38] Yes, I was wondering, on the map there, there's a parcel that

[1:53:41] looks like it's landlocked, there's no house on it.

[1:53:47] Can you expand on that or like, who owns it or what?

[1:53:53] See, yeah, go ahead.

[1:53:54] Yeah, are you referring to this or up here?

[1:53:57] Okay, so your mouth doesn't work?

[1:54:00] I know, it's quite frustrating.

[1:54:01] It's not showing up on the screen.

[1:54:02] Okay, because the people online, I know, I know, so, okay, so go ahead.

[1:54:07] If we look at the North Arrow, just I'll explain it to my friends online.

[1:54:10] So, I believe Mr. Buckley is referring to north of the property this landlocked property. Is that what you're referring to?

[1:54:17] Correct, yes. And then there's now because of the way the survey was done of the site. There are actually also two parcels down here that are landlocked as well.

[1:54:28] And I believe, Kirk, me, if I'm wrong, anyone on the town side, that it is unknown ownership of this one.

[1:54:37] And then these, they have some potential owners that have, on the plan of land, I know it's had possibly, with some names identified, but I believe it's unknown.

[1:54:49] Is that correct?

[1:54:50] That's correct. So the parcel to the North, that is it is unknown and it's something that we thought that we will likely look into as we move through.

[1:54:58] process. The parcels below one is owned by airs of a person who had passed away and the other

[1:55:11] parcel is, there's an unknown, we know who the owner was many years ago, but we don't have a trail

[1:55:25] to who would be that owner at this point in time and so those are other, you know, we're

[1:55:30] looking into those parcels, so we are looking into the, you know, potential ownership

[1:55:37] of those parcels or whether or not it would make sense at all to even consider them for

[1:55:43] part of this development.

[1:55:45] Thank you.

[1:55:46] Thank you.

[1:55:46] And again, I realized I didn't explain the other property that we were talking about is in

[1:55:50] the kind of Southern Southwest where it kind of makes that triangle. I'm trying to explain it

[1:55:56] for my friends online because you can't see my mouse. But yeah, so those landlocked properties

[1:56:01] are what Mr. Boughley was referring to.

[1:56:05] Okay, yeah. I used to do research for owners I know and the thing is that there are owners,

[1:56:11] they just don't know it. You know, the second, third cousin or whatever,

[1:56:15] who ever owned it, so it's a matter of researching.

[1:56:19] And yes, so it would be nice to know, I guess at this point,

[1:56:22] before going too much further, who would find out where.

[1:56:25] Where, who are if that northern, at least an northern one,

[1:56:30] belongs to in case the town wants to step in and scoop it up.

[1:56:38] Any other part, which that yes, as Shireen was saying,

[1:56:42] me, you know, to be able to use that, that flying field right there, I mean, I was talking

[1:56:48] earlier about a former buckly property, being able to have a place where kids could

[1:56:52] play, and that she's just, begging, it's like it's so great that there will be some

[1:57:00] access there, but, and so anything that was built though, I would say that, yes, the idea

[1:57:06] that the buildings would be placed in such a way that would not prevent access from the residents,

[1:57:15] you know, that to be easy access to walk over and take a walk and so forth and so on.

[1:57:21] And I should point out just for FYI, there's there is similar for the former Buckley property across the street from that.

[1:57:29] There's conservationally on there too, so the kids can play there too.

[1:57:34] Thank you.

[1:57:34] Thank you so much.

[1:57:38] Yes.

[1:57:38] Come on up and then.

[1:57:40] You and then in the back.

[1:57:41] It's fine.

[1:57:42] Super quick.

[1:57:43] As someone who lives on meeting out's road, I completely agree that single family homes would be

[1:57:48] perfect here.

[1:57:49] Ironically, this is a neighborhood that a lot of us moved to because it was the only place left

[1:57:52] we could afford to move to.

[1:57:54] So I'd love to keep it sort of having that feel of like, you know, and it's not just

[1:58:00] young families.

[1:58:01] It's young families.

[1:58:02] It's older people.

[1:58:03] It's a mix of people, but it's really a great neighborhood because it's where we all had to go, because it was the only place left to buy about ten years ago.

[1:58:13] It's local, yeah, it's great. So we love it, and we would love to keep it in keeping with what's there.

[1:58:19] Okay, thank you.

[1:58:24] It's time, Joan Craig again.

[1:58:26] I'm not familiar with a lot of that area. However, it reminds me of Gomes Way in Harwich.

[1:58:33] I don't know if anyone's ever been there.

[1:58:35] It has more space with regards to the acreage.

[1:58:40] However, the houses are two and three bedroom,

[1:58:44] I believe, and their suite.

[1:58:48] Their cottages, their small, but lovely people,

[1:58:55] keep them really nicely arranged.

[1:59:01] arranged. It's in a cul-de-sac, and they're not overwhelming, so something like that,

[1:59:10] or working with the architectural design of the current meeting house. But that area is really

[1:59:19] quite nicely done. I think this area might be a little more dense, as far as having the house

[1:59:27] closer together, but even in gums if you had more houses there, it would still look

[1:59:33] really good. So something like that would be very comfortable.

[1:59:36] That's a nice project. Thank you.

[1:59:42] Other comments or questions?

[1:59:51] Okay.

[1:59:52] So thank you for all of that feedback. We will discuss it with our team at Dodson and with

[1:59:58] a town staff.

[2:00:00] And make sure that that kind of gets incorporated into what will happen at the next meeting. And we hope to see you there.

[2:00:07] I'm going to briefly go over next steps and how you can keep aware of this process.

[2:00:13] I really appreciated the suggestion of having a project page, and we will discuss how to, if that's feasible with staff.

[2:00:20] But at the very least, we do have a suggestion in the meantime, so let me just go over that with you.

[2:00:35] So I put this up earlier, but there will be a visual preference survey, we'll be announcing

[2:00:40] next month.

[2:00:41] And that will look at things like, not only building type, but also density and kind

[2:00:46] of general considerations, and there may be some other questions on that survey as well.

[2:00:51] And then in February, that soon will be back here with Dodson and Flinker to kind of show

[2:00:55] what may be possible based on the constraints of each site and what we heard through the visual

[2:01:04] preference survey through this meeting, and so forth.

[2:01:09] So that is what's coming in the next couple of months.

[2:01:12] Again, the kind of later part of this process with the third community meeting that likely

[2:01:16] be in the spring, but the date is not determined yet for that, where there will be kind

[2:01:20] of final concept presented to the public.

[2:01:22] And I really want to emphasize again, there are concepts that are meant to inform how the

[2:01:27] town will draft an RFP for each property, for its development, and will make sure to kind

[2:01:34] over that process in the second community meeting because I think that's a very valid point

[2:01:37] that people are going to want to know. It takes years from where we are right now to have

[2:01:42] something built on either of these properties and so giving people kind of a sense of understanding

[2:01:46] what that will look like. So, but one way to stay connected with this process if you aren't already,

[2:01:53] the towns, the main sheet newsletter. I just want to make sure you know how to access that. We talk

[2:01:57] to staff about making sure that the survey link goes out through that and also the information about

[2:02:03] the next community meetings, until we get something more solidified on the website.

[2:02:08] But if you're not signed up for this email newsletter already, if you scroll down to

[2:02:14] the bottom of the town's website, you'll see way at the bottom, this connect with us.

[2:02:21] There's a note of find me link there.

[2:02:23] And when you click on that, there's all these different newsletters you can sign up for,

[2:02:26] that maybe you are not aware of.

[2:02:28] Well, I think it's great to sign up for all of them.

[2:02:30] the one that relates to the town's news that are the main sheet is the government one.

[2:02:35] So that's under that note if I mean link when you click on that.

[2:02:38] So that's how you would get, how often does that news that are come out weekly?

[2:02:44] Okay, so then you would be on that distribution list if you aren't already.

[2:02:48] So I just want to make sure you're aware of that and we will make sure next steps are shared

[2:02:53] through that, but I just want to really thank you all so much for attending both in-person

[2:02:58] and online and our emails for the kind of primary project points are up there and we'll

[2:03:05] make sure that that information wherever the landing house on the website is is there as

[2:03:10] well for you.

[2:03:12] So thank you and we look forward to seeing you in February.

[2:03:15] Thank you all very much for coming and thank you to Barrett Planning Group for leading the meeting

[2:03:19] today.

[2:03:20] Thank you.

Chatham Community Engagement Meeting for Affordable and Attainable Housing Development

Transcript