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Funds OK’d for 1st step in housing plan
By Pru Sowers
Banner Staff
PROVINCETOWN — Despite concerns from some selectmen that a proposed Housing Action Plan needs to be looked at more completely, two other local boards moved ahead last week to put part of the plan before voters at Town Meeting in April.
While selectmen have not adopted the comprehensive affordable housing plan, which they said they want to have in place by the end of this month, they and two other housing boards have approved a proposed plan to seek funding to create a Provincetown housing office. And that office would oversee the implementation of any future housing plan.
Both the Community Preservation Committee and the Local Housing Partnership voted unanimously last week to approve in principle a three-year proposed funding plan to first hire a housing consultant to structure a new Provincetown affordable housing department, then hire a housing specialist to run that department for three years. The budget for the entire proposal is $524,340 over the three-year period.
The board of selectmen at their meeting last week also approved the proposed budget, voting to authorize the town manager to informally submit the proposed funding plan to the CPC for funding. If the CPC approves the funding request, it would be on the April Town Meeting warrant for voters to give the ultimate thumbs-up or down.
The budget proposal would first pay an estimated $28,800 to hire the consultant to structure the new town housing department, facilitate the hiring of a housing officer to run that department, and “fine tune” housing goals and objectives for the department. The remainder of the $524,340 budget would be used to hire a housing specialist for three years, plus pay for other consultants to help that specialist develop a long-term affordable housing action plan; do architectural, engineering and site analyses; and assist with any legal questions.
While the town still needs to make a formal application to the CPC for funding, CPC board members last week unanimously voted “to support the Housing Staffing Plan,” a pre-approval of a one-page budget request that would commit CPC funds over the next three years. The proposed budget divides the funding sources for the $524,340 between the CPC, which would pay 75 percent, and the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which would pay the remaining 25 percent.
Board of selectmen chair Cheryl Andrews said last week that despite questions she still has about the broader proposed housing action plan — written by a group of seven subcommittees created at last fall’s housing summit — she is “not adverse” to hiring town staff to facilitate the path towards creating more affordable housing in town.
“As a show of good faith in this process, we authorized [Town Manager] Keith [Bergman] to take it forward,” Andrews said.
CPC board member Austin Knight said that although there is not a comprehensive housing plan in place yet, it makes sense to move ahead to hire a housing specialist to get the ball rolling. Specifically, he said, it is critical to get a person in place who can seek state and federal grant funds to help Provincetown pay the $30 million that housing consultant John Ryan estimates it will cost to build enough affordable units to meet the town’s needs.
“You have to have someone in there to get funding. I don’t think [hiring a housing specialist] is putting the cart before the horse,” Knight said, adding, “This is the beginning. You can’t do it all at once.”
The budget for the consultant and housing specialist was developed by the Housing Office Work Group, a group approved by selectmen last month. The work group — composed of representatives from several existing affordable housing boards, the selectmen, the finance committee and the community at large — was created to make recommendations to selectmen on how best to implement a comprehensive Housing Action Plan.
The foundation for the action plan is a report approved by the seven subcommittees formed at the Housing Summit. That report, which advocates the creation of a Provincetown Housing Office, was put in front of selectmen last week for adoption and, after a lengthy debate, the board decided to wait on adopting the whole plan in favor of taking a portion of it — hiring a consultant to structure the new housing office and then hiring a housing specialist — and apply for funding from the CPC.
The estimated $28,800 for the initial housing consultant would come out of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, an account administered by the Provincetown Housing Authority and made up of 10 percent of Land Bank funds for affordable housing. Both the CPC and LHP voted unanimously last week to recommend to the housing authority that it allocate the funds.
“For years we’ve been talking about getting an affordable housing specialist in this town,” said A.J. Alon, chair of the LHP.
“It’s long overdue,” said Tim Hazel, LHP vice-chair. “We wouldn’t have some of this unruliness in place if we had one, with everybody trying to control this.”
More significantly, the CPC voted last week to essentially approve any application the town makes for Community Preservation Act funding to pay for the proposal.
If the housing authority agrees to pay its proposed 25 percent share — which would be $131,085 over three years — funding for the entire staffing plan would be in place, with no money needed from the town’s general fund.
“This is our way of letting the selectmen know we are on board on this,” said the CPC’s Knight.
Housing consultant Ryan — who facilitated the fall Housing Summit, the creation of the subsequent workgroups and completion of the proposed affordable housing action plan —already has submitted a $23,500 proposal to be the consultant who will establish parameters for the housing specialist. Ryan said he could begin as soon as Feb. 19 and have the office operational by July 1.
Andrews last week expressed concerns that the housing work group was working without any oversight, and that a clear process for the creation of a new town department, with the involvement of the board of selectmen, hadn’t been established. The housing action plan itself, as submitted by the housing summit subcommittees, is “exactly what the board of selectmen had hoped for,” Andrews said, adding, however, that the debate “was over the role of the selectmen.”
“The role of the board of selectmen is to set policy. You want consistency in your policy,” Andrews said.
Selectman David Nicolau said that while the three-year proposed housing specialist budget “was well thought out,” he also had questions about the larger action plan that he wanted to discuss before adopting it. In particular, he said, there are zoning implications in the proposed comprehensive plan that need to be addressed, as well as the recommended parameters for what percentage of the median income should apply to middle-income individuals and families applying for affordable housing.
psowers@provincetownbanner.com
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Feb 1st, 2007