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4 trust. Ms. Reisig went on to explain that as Lexington currently operates, funds for affordable housing are appropriated at Town Meeting, once or possibly twice a year. Unfortunately, with the real estate market being as fast- paced as it is, this puts the Town at a huge disadvantage when attempting to purchase property to increase subsidized housing stock. An affordable housing trust, by contrast, can react to the market in real time and can make purchases on a rolling basis. The current system has already cost Lexington the chance to make two property purchases. Ms. Reisig also stated that the housing trust model is well established in the Commonwealth and that if adopted, Lexington would become the 129th municipality to adopt this model since the law allowing such trusts passed in 2005. The 128 current municipalities represent an increase of 18 communities since 2019. Ms. Reisig went on to explain what an affordable housing trust can use its funding for, including creating affordable housing either by new construction or renovation, preserving affordability of rental units, establishing down payment or rental assistance, and advocacy for more affordable housing. Ms. Reisig further explained how the trust would be funded, including transfers from the CPA, municipal funds and private donations, ARPA funds, fees from the sale of affordable homes and federal fu nding among others. Ms. Reisig also explained the concept of “prefunding” to the Committee and how that would benefit the trust once it is established. Prefunding is non-project specific funds that can allow the trust and the Town to remain competitive in the real estate market. Ms. Reisig further explained that most of the trusts are pre-funded and these funds can be allocated for the purchase of properties, hiring consultants to create housing needs assessments, and preparation of RFPs for development. Ms. Reisig explained that the ideal number of trustees would be from 5-9 and would ideally have professional or personal experience in affordable housing, a real estate agent, developer, banker and most importantly a resident in an affordable housing unit. Once the trust was established, with these trustees could be sworn in and begin developing an action plan for the trust and begin its work. Mr. Horton asked if the trust was going to be a Town entity. Ms. Reisig said that it was in fact going to be a Town entity but rather it was LexHAB that was going to become a separate entity. Carol Kowalski also explained that this was the case. Ms. Kowalski went on to explain that one project could move forward without the other, but since both Article 14 and Article 12 are so similar in scope, she describes them as “the dynamic duo”. Ms. Kowalski also explained that in theory any entity could receive money from the affordable housing trust and that it will act like a bank. The difference with LexHAB is that LexHAB would behave like a developer or a landlord. Furthermore, it was explained that both of these entities would exist with their own boards. Ms. Fenollosa noted that every affordable housing project brought to the Committee has been for a project rather than a prefunding, and that currently Town Meeting still has a say over what was being built and where, with taxpayer money. While this has caused past projects to stall as a result of citizen input; once the trust is funded, the input of Town Meeting and the general public is taken away. Ms. Kowalski refuted this point by stating that affordable housing projects are still subject to Lexington’s Zoning laws and that a project, if it includes affordable housing, could still be subject to Town Meeting or the Zoning Bboard of Appeals depending on the scope of the project and that if it didn’t follow Zoning laws a project would be brought to Town Meeting for approval. Ms. Rust commented that any significant project would more than likely require additional CPA funding and therefore Town Meeting would have input that way.