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Lexington Housing Partnership
Minutes of the regular meeting of the Lexington Housing Partnership, September 27, 2007,
7 p.m. held in Room G-15 in the Town Office Building.
In attendance: Florence Baturin, Robert Bicknell, Elizabeth Borghesani, William Carlson, Julia
Duncan, Thomas Harden, Mary Haskell, Arthur Katz, Kenneth Kreutziger, Winifred McGowan,
Betsey Weiss, Iris Wheaton and Maryann McCall-Taylor
The minutes of the August 29, 2007 meeting were approved with one abstention.
Arthur Katz was approved as the Partnership’s representative to the Emergency
1)
Housing Committee, newly created by LexHAB
. The LEHAC is to participate in aiding
families in need of emergency shelter in a more expeditious manner than is currently available.
Other members will include designees of the Board of Selectmen, the Social Services
Department, the Clergy Association and LexHAB. Julie Duncan also expressed an interest in
being involved. Bob will forward her interest to the Board of Selectmen.
The Board voted to approve submission of a letter to the Selectmen advising that the
2)
LHP has voted to apply this year’s HOME funds in support of the LexHAB project to
purchase three Parker School condominiums as affordable housing.
The funds total $52,615 including funds left from prior years and their use insures that the three
units will qualify for inclusion in Lexington’s Subsidized Housing inventory. The units will cost
about $300,000 each, and other funds are expected to come from the CPA.
3) Chairman Bicknell proposed the group put forward a proposal for a Residential Adaptive
Reuse Overlay District, designed to convert non-residential buildings, no longer in use for their
original purpose, into affordable housing.
After lengthy discussion, the sense of the Board was that the concept needs further work and
should not go forward at this time. It was noted that use should be made of previous surveys of
such properties to help understand what sites would be available for development.
It was agreed that the proposal be revised, circulated by e-mail, and discussed at the next
meeting.
4) No action was taken on a proposal for identifying suitable land for affordable housing in town,
building on a previous survey by Dodson Associates.
5) Discussion about the need for further promotion and education of the public about Accessory
Apartments led to the creation of the subcommittee of Julia Duncan and Iris Wheaton to review
the current situation and look for ways to further promote the use of the changed Accessory
Apartment bylaw to increase the stock of affordable housing. Suggestions included a brochure, a
Jay Kaufman Open House, and articles in the Minuteman and the Colonial Times.
Lexington Housing Partnership
6) The Board agreed to ask the CPC to set aside CPA funds for affordable housing projects
which may develop in the future. Chairman Bicknell suggested that it would be useful to find out
how other communities have handled this matter.
It was suggested that a subcommittee should be established to coordinate CPA requests, but no
specific action was taken. Ken Kreutziger agreed to do some research to capture the sense of last
year’s town meeting with regard to use of CPA funds for affordable housing.
Tom Harden suggested that one use for CPA funds would be to write down second mortgages.
He agreed to set up a subcommittee meeting with Bob Bicknell, Julie Duncan and Jeri Foutter to
discuss this further.
The next meeting will be held on October 25, 2007 in room G-15 in the Town Hall at 7-
9pm..
Respectfully submitted,
Arthur Katz, Secretary Pro Tem