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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-03-08-LHRC-min TOWN OF LEXINGTON HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES Wednesday, March 08, 2023 Conducted by Remote Participation LHRC MEMBERS PRESENT Tanya Gisolfi, Chairperson (TG), Mona D. Roy, Vice-Chair (MDR), Christina Lin, Clerk (CL), Salvador Jaramillo (SJ), Stephanie Hsu (SH), Lexington Public School District - Larry Freeman (LF), Town of Lexington, Human Services - Melissa Interess (MI), Guest - Abby McCabe, Town of Lexington Planning Board Director The minutes were taken by Christina Lin, LHRC Clerk • Meeting Called to order at 8:48, Quorum was present. • Meeting Minutes - No minutes for approval at this time. The February minutes are under review by Superintendent Hackett. • Review of questions for the Systemic Barriers Report – postponed. • Acknowledgement of Governor Healey's signing proclamation recognizing March 2023 as the 2023 Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month in Massachusetts. Committee members decided to include the link to the Proclamation on the LHRC website. • Race Amity Day 2023 event planning update - Event planning by SH and Amber Iqbal Ongoing efforts to find artists in helping to create murals about Race Amity. The murals would be a moveable art and can be stored when not in use. Additionally, middle school artwork will continue to be a part of this programming, consistent with the previous two years. The committee discussed memorializing the artwork as a calendar and a way to carry on the tradition of using art to inspire social justice. A new banner for Race Amity Day is also in the works but, due to construction, the logistics of hanging the banner up in town center this calendar year needs to be verified. • MLK Day Community Conversation on Race (CCR) - Event recap and report. PDF of slide presentation attached. In short, 177 attendees participated despite uncertain weather. The theme for 2023 was action through dialogue. In the initial follow -up at 1week and 1month after the event, very few people engaged with the task of connecting with an acquaintance. The MLK CCR will need to meet and discuss the results and how this will inform planning for the 2024 event. • Consideration of upcoming Town Meeting Articles for feedback to the Select Board. The Town of Lexington Planning Board Director, Abby McCabe is present to answer any questions from committee members. Article 35&34 - Update from Ms. McCabe is that these two articles will be combined into one under Article #34 at Town Meeting. o Question on the 15% Affordable Housing requirement and how that applies to the number of multi-family housing units built. Director McCabe explains that the 15% affordable requirement kicks in when the number of multi-family units planned is 8 or greater. o Clarification on what defines affordable for the 15% affordable unites - Answer is that those units must be sold at 80% of the area median income. For Lexington, 80% of median income for a single person is around $70,000. Ms. McCabe explains further that ultimately, the goal of the state is to produce more housing units and there was concern that applying pressure to build more affordable housing would have a negative impact on housing production. For several decades, housing supply has consistently been less than the demand for housing. The hope is that zoning for multifamily housing will help increase housing supply and thereby stabilizing the cost of housing. 2% of Lexington's land area is required to be zoned for multi-family unit housing under the new state law. o A member inquired about increasing pressure on schools as a downstream effect of the zoning rules. In particular, the concern is that special education students are the most disproportionately impacted when schools become overcrowded and students with marginalized identities are also disproportionately affected. Additionally, while the question targets a concern about concurrent planning for schools, the member did emphasize a desire to encourage more diverse housing stock and younger demographic to be able to access housing in Lexington. Ms. McCabe shares that the planning board is aware of the possibility of increased housing leading to overcrowding in the schools. However, through zoning, it is hard to predict exactly how much housing will be produced and they are not allowed to exclude certain groups in the planning process. The school district is aware of the proposed zoning and there is an enrollment group in town that looks at student enrollment trends and they too are supportive of the new proposals. Additionally, multi-unit housing typically has fewer school aged children in their developments. o A question about whether the planning board could push for more affordable housing because they have heard others asking if Lexington could do more for increasing affordable housing units in town. McCabe responds that with this zoning proposal, the planning board is doing the maximum and points out that while the state requires only up to 10% inclusionary zoning, the Lexington Planning Board were able to push for 15% inclusionary zoning by consulting a fiscal economic study to verify that it is financially feasible in Lexington to increase the affordable housing cap to 15%. Ms. McCabe also cautioned that the Planning Board is not allowed to propose zoning that is so restrictive that it effectively prevents new housing. She also commented that having Article 33, 34 and the new Affordable Housing Trust in combination will create a strong policy for inclusionary housing. o SJ addressed their belief that there were misconceptions about the correlation of housing and rate of student enrollment and that past data looking at number of students per dwelling was well below one and encouraged the committee to help dispel any notion that each new dwelling will bring along multiple students to the school district. They also pointed out the need to ask for clarity when to wn residents make broad statements that Articles 33 and 34 will destroy the 'character of the town.' o Ms. McCabe commented on the nature of concern around single housing development in comparison to multi-family unit housing. Whereas single housing development raises concern over traffic and general construction, only when multi-family housing is proposed, does the Planning Board hear concerns of overcrowding of schools get mentioned. She points out that this is a rather curious anomaly associated with denser housing proposals. A member of the committee echoed this sentiment, the construction of the Avalon apartments had not increased student enrollment as suggested by those concerned with development of multi-unit housing. MR pointed out that the special education community do worry about downstream impacts of increased housing (whether it is single detached or multi-family units) on their students who are disproportionately impacted when enrollment exceeds capacity. o A member asked if Article 33 might allow for a loophole to Article 34 and 35 and there be in conflict with the aims of increasing housing and inclusive housing. Ms. McCabe said the Planning Board did not see any conflicts between the three articles should they all pass Town Meeting, but rather, that they work in complement to each other. A point of clarification was requested on the threshold for affordable housing to kick in on Article 34&35. In a scenario where only 5 units were proposed for construction, none of them would be required to be affordable housing. Only when 8 units or more are built will there be the affordable unit requirement at the rate of 15%. o Another question about whether the Affordable Housing Trust publishes a report on how they spend their funds. Since they are newly formed, no report has yet been created, but it is likely they will report on this in the future. Article 23 - Special Education Reserve Fund o This fund is separate from the Special Education Stabilization fund. A member asked why $500,000 of funds from the Special Education Stabilization was not spent and was instead returned at the end of the fiscal year when students were not able to access support services during the pandemic. And, how would the newly proposed reserve fund be spent differently? EJ, school committee liaison, explains that the stabilization fund requires Town Meeting approval to be released whereas the reserve fund would only need Select Board and School Committee approval for access. LF explained that one challenge to access to support services currently is the lack of qualified educators which is consistent with a nationwide trend. o Further inquiry about whether the reserve funds could be utilized to provide supportive services for students still struggling from the impacts of the pandemic was voiced. LF explained that enrollment of high needs students in the district has gone up and this type of fund would be helpful should those students need additional services that requires funding in a timely manner that is not always possible when a Town Meeting vote of approval is required. o MR shared that DESE might be able to extend additional funding for students who missed out on supportive services and had turned 22 during the pandemic and therefore missed out on access to much needed services. She asked if the reserve fund could be used towards that cohort of students. EJ did not think that the reserve fund would be utilized in this manner but that a different funding source would apply to that cohort of students. LF suggests that the reserve fund could be used to support students who did not appear to need supportive services pre- pandemic, but have since qualified for special education services. LF thinks the reserve fund can help secure resources for students but that there is a shortage of qualified teachers. o SH felt this article was important because currently, the district cannot even bring students back from outplacement who are ready to be re-enrolled in the LPS system due to a lack of programming for those students. Given that out of district placement is an exorbitant cost, she was fully in support of investing in ways to be able to fund for teachers and programming to keep students in-district. Discussion on whether the committee wishes to take a position on upcoming town meeting articles discussed o Clarification was made that any committee position or vote on an article would be made to the Select Board and not Town Meeting. The position would likely be read out as a vote count. o SJ suggested the committee may wish to inform the Town Meeting Moderator o There was some discussion about planning further in advance for discussion on potential Town Meeting articles that the committee may wish to take a position on in the future so that members would be able to attend relevant meetings and have time to be adequately informed in order to take a vote. TG noted this connects back to previous conversations about liaison roles for the LHRC so that committee members can report back relevant issues at meetings and also staying informed with the work of other committees in areas that touch on human rights is sues. o Ultimately, all committee members felt prepared to take a vote on the articles discussed and to relay the vote count to the Select Board. There was a sense that the LHRC may wish to adopt the practice of taking positions on select Town Meeting Articles and a discussion on this would need to be held at a future meeting. o Vote on Articles - o Article 23 - Motion for the Lexington Human Rights Committee in support of Article 23, LF abstains, 6-0-1 (yes, no, abstain) o Article 33 - Motion for the Lexington Human Rights Committee in support of Article 33 (7-0-0) o Article 34 - Motion for the Lexington Human Rights Committee in support of Article 34 (7-0-0) Resources shared in the Zoom Chat o A really great resource that maps out the historical redlining in Lexington and the Boston area, note the description of the “inhabitants”: https://dsl.richmond.edu/panorama/redlining/#loc=13/42.442/- 71.284&city=lexington-ma&area=B1 o Link to warrant: https://www.lexingtonma.gov/DocumentCenter/View/7891/FINAL_Warrant_as- edited-124-5pm?bidId= o You can also sign up to receive Planning Board agendas with detailed meeting info here: https://visitor.r20.constantcontact.com/manage/optin?v=001OkYV23r4voB1ZWZ 4Df35dRfWSnhKSmDUw4ObRViyV7qHmoY8mILpIQ%3D%3D o Parent and Caregiver Academy is March 11, 2023 ; Sign up for Parent Academy here - https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeLq_1s11NyLCAnqy48sTtD14JhPN HAs2J7Mx5WwG9y8uLX0Q/closedform Links to resources referenced o Proclamation for March 2023 as Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Awareness March: https://www.mass.gov/doc/march-2023-intellectual-and- developmental-disabilities-awareness-month/download • Next Meeting is Wednesday, April 12, 2023, at 8:45AM • Meeting adjourned at 10:45AM 1625 MASSACHUSETTS AVENUE • LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02420 minutes for comment. Members of the Committee will neither