2019-02-21-HPB-min - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ɏ Lexington Housing Partnership Board 2. Housing Choice Initiative (Chris Kluchman) The Housing Choice Initiative is being undertaken by the Baker-Polito administration to increase its housing stock to support a growing economy with a growing population. In the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s new housing production was about half of that of the three previous decades. Currently, there is not enough housing to address the need. This shortage is particularly an issue with housing for seniors and for the lower income population. The Housing Choice initiative designates communities that meet a certain threshold and then rewarding the communities with funding. Specifically, the designation is applied to communities that have produced more than 500 units or had greater than 5% housing growth over the last five years; or have produced more than 300 units or had great than a 3% increase and implemented 5 of 11 housing best practices, including at least one affordable housing best practice. The Housing Choice initiative provides multiple benefits to designated communities: Priority scoring for Commonwealth Grant Programs. Exclusive access to a capital grant program for Housing Choice Communities. New and better coordinated technical assistance to maintain housing production. Continued support for sustainable development to maintain designation and compete for Housing Choice Grants. The goal is to produce 135,000 new housing units over the next 3 years. Further information on the program may be found at https://www.mass.gov/orgs/housing-choice-initiative. The Baker-Politio administration has also filed legislation that changed the requirement for a two thirds majority to a simple majority for zoning amendments. The Joint Housing Committee issued a modified version of the legislation as House Bill 4390. The bill remained in the Ways and Means committee and was not referred to the legislature for further action. The administration plans to resubmit the bill. According to the best data available, Lexington issued only 3.7% net new housing permits in the past 5 years. This number incorrectly does not remove teardowns from the housing permits, so the number is overstated. There were fewer than 3.7% net new housing permits in the 5 year period. Units that do not have 24 hour nursing care count towards the Housing Choice Initiative goals: if the residents are living independently, then the units count towards the HCI goal. 3. Comprehensive Plan Leonard Morse-Fortier, of the Lexington Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee (CPAC) joined towards them. He stated that CPAC is currently in the process of collecting data about community preferences regarding houses. Mr. Morse-Fortier is an advocate of clustered housing around the center and in multi-story housing. Current CPAC status: each CPAC member is still on a learning curve. They have gathered information on multiple topics community forums for further input.