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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-06-16-EDAC-min APPROVED MEETING MINUTES OF THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE FOR JUNE 16, 2022 June 16, 2022 Economic Development Advisory Committee Meeting Minutes of June 16, 2022 The Economic Development Advisory Committee [EDAC] met by remote participation for Thursday, June 16, at 8:00 a.m. via Zoom. This meeting was held remotely pursuant to Governor Baker’s March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of G.L. c. 30A, section 18 and subsequent orders imposing strict limitations on the number of people who may gather in one place. EDAC Members present: Rick DeAngelis (Chair), Bridger McGaw (Vice Chair), Larry Smith, Charles Minasian, David Pronchick, Bridger McGaw, Lisa Murray, Adrienne Ortyl Liaisons and Town Staff: Joe Pato (Select Board), Mark Sandeen (Select Board), Carol Kowalski (Assistant Town Manager), Charles Hornig (Planning Board), Sandhya Iyer (Economic Development Director), and Mike Kennealy (Secretary of Economic Development). Larry Smith moved the approval of the May 19th meeting minutes and was seconded by Bridger McGaw. The meeting minutes were approved unanimously 6-0. Secretary Kennealy was welcomed by the Chair and shared remarks on a wide variety of topics. He shared initial actions by his office when the pandemic started. He stressed the economic impact is still very real on the “Main Streets” across the Commonwealth. State focus on Competitiveness 1. Workforce: the focus is on skill gaps in workforce to build up or augment programming – 160,000 unemployed and 250,000 job openings. There is a skill gap and we want to focus on career path training 2. Global Leadership: we are leading in multiple sectors such as cyber security, life sciences, health care, education. There is a tri-sector partnership between higher education, private sector and government to focus on growing out our leadership in these growth industries. We want to also be a state that Manufactures products, not just designs innovations. The supply chain disruptions showed 3. Investing in our communities and downtowns. We have a strategy around this and a legislative initiative. There are a lot of programs and complexities to them. We looked at way to combine 13 programs into 1 grant making one-stop delivery channel – if legislation passes. 4. Small Business Support: We had $700M from State / Federal funds to support small businesses locally. This was directed at women owned, minority owned and businesses in gateway cities. Now as we look at how we recovered, we are focused on growth. 5. Solving the Housing Crisis. This was something that has been a generation in the making. It was before the pandemic. Rent is too high and unaffordable and leading drivers of homelessness and impact on our seniors. The housing crisis hurts our competitiveness as a state. State mandate for multi-zone housing through the MBTA guidance. The Secretary then opened the floor to questions and comments. The departure of Raytheon move to Washington, DC was not a surprise considering their leadership was mainly there already. We need to focus on increasing the housing stock. The Chair asked about how the State is focused on helping support communities in attracting new development and how can Lexington better engage the leaders in the Commonwealth to capitalize on opportunities including addressing transportation challenges. The Secretary noted that we in a dynamic development time. The local government and community needs to be EASY to work with – the State or community that is easiest to work with is winning the opportunity from companies at this time. Its our role in the office to steer projects to options and navigate the process at the State level. Carol Kowalski raised question about the number of single family homes being purchased by LLCs and seeing investors buying up housing stock and outcompeting people who need places to actually ‘live’ as ‘shelter.’ But she stressed the State look into this area and the Secretary will take that back. Charles Hornig, Planning Board raised that housing remains a priority too but that the State guidance has been slow in action on housing or in the new Building Code. The Secretary commented that this was a huge stakeholder engagement effort around the MBTA housing mandate and plan to get. More of all types of housing everyone. Mr. Sandeen asked about what local actions can be taken locally to enable that approach when we added 41 units of affordable housing and lost the same amount in the last 10 years. The Secretary stressed it is also “housing you can afford” AND “affordable housing.” We have requested more funding in state legislation for affordable housing. If all towns got to 10% affordable housing – it would still not be enough to close the gap. As a Town, focus on the Affordable Housing – We need to see more density in downtown and make it easier to get those projects done in Lexington. We are the global leader in life sciences with more lab space and while there could be concern of being overbuilt in Massachusetts, we are watching it. Sandya Iyer stressed her thanks to Secretary Kennealy for supporting ARPA funding that helped small businesses and some cultural businesses as well. Our vacancy rate is now only 1.8% in Lexington Center. We are losing MBTA services to Lexington Center and Hartwell Avenue where we are focusing our life science development work. She also stressed need to attract incubator space in the Lexington area. Secretary stressed that the Worcester incubator was locally conceived, and the State funded as it grew and if Lexington organically identifies incubator idea he will be excited to hear the proposal. Charlie Minassian asked about workforce housing for more of the service industry. So much of the service jobs in Lexington are not being filled. Adding ease of immigration to the state will be a lot helpful. We are looking at a long transition in the workforce and its impacting all of the service sectors. A short discussion was had about the Transportation Planning and MBTA route changes. Mr. McGaw presented the challenge of the connection between the housing / transportation / development and the importance of the EDAC engaging in these areas as vital to effective and impactful strategy for the Town. The EDev Office requested that the EDAC members, individually and collectively, provide comments to the MBTA about their decision. An active dialogue continued that the MBTA Housing law will require MBTA services to be provided if we get all this housing built. Will the state consider re-instated MBTA services to pre-COVID levels. Mr. Hornig introduces that in some ways the MBTA services are not as impacted as people think they are. Assistant Town Manager Carol Kowalski offered to have the staff provide briefing on the non-MBTA provide some information on where we are to date. The EDAC remains interested in understanding the Status and Community feedback on Projects Previously reviewed by EDAC including 475 Bedford Street and 95-99 Hayden Avenue. The EDAC voiced support for reviewing and developing recommendations around the conditions and mitigations from recent MOUs with developments and will be looking into this in subsequent research and discussions. A quick oral update on Development Projects in Lexington was provided but no written documentation provided on those items. It was requested that these updates be provided in writing in the future to help us document and engage in follow ups. The Meeting was adjourned unanimously.