Posted on April 2, 2015
CHESTERFIELD, April 2, 2015 --- Three members of Gov. Charlie Baker's administration came out to western Massachusetts on Thursday, April 2 for a community discussion on affordable housing challenges and opportunities in the region.
Organized by MHP's Community Housing Initaitive's team, the group first stopped to see a small-scale affordable housing develoment in Westhampton before moving onto to Chesterfield for a two-hour luncheon discussion at the headquarters of the Hilltown Community Development Corp., the region's top nonprofit housing CDC.
Representing the Baker Adminstration were Chrystal Kornegay, the state's undersecretary for housing, Paul McMorrow, director of policy and communications at the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development and Erica Kreuter, executive director of the state's MassWorks program.
First stop on the tour was Westhampton Senior Village, a 15-unit affordable rental housing development that was built in two phases and features eight duplex homes, with one of the units being used as a community room. The project was developed by the Hilltown CDC. The town of Westhampton granted the project a Ch. 40B comprehensive permit and then amended it to allow the second phase to be built.
After seeing Westhampton, the group moved onto Chesterfield for a discussion on a wide range of challenges the region faces. Topics discussed included the difficulty in making small-scale developments of under 20 units work, adaptive reuse of mills and other historic buildings, challenges in using federal Community Development Block Grant funds for homeowner rehab and the difficulty in getting multi-family rental housing permitted due to a range of challenges including septic regulations and community resistance.
To illustrate the latter, Carol Zingarelli of Williamstown spoke of residents like herself spending four months living in a hotel before they could return to their homes at the Spruces Mobile Home Park, which was all but destroyed by Tropical Storm Irene floodwaters in 2011.
Immediately afterward, a nonprofit group called Common Ground formed to explore developing alternative housing away from the flood plain that the Spruces was located on. The group met with local resistance on some sites and to date is moving forward with a 40-unit plan on land donated by Williams College. Zingarelli said most of the 300 residents at the Spruces have sinced moved elsewhere.
Noting the recent success of the state's gateway cities in working together to gain support from the state, former Northampton mayor Clare Higgins said, "Don't just think about gateway cities. We have poor people too."
In response to Higgins (now executive director at Community Action), McMorrow said the administration is hoping to take the gateway model and see if it can work on the regional level. "The Baker Administration wants strong cities and strong regions," he said.
Kornegay urged rural leaders to work with their legislators to bring forth their priorities to the administration.
The event was hosted by the Hilltown CDC. Hilltown housing director Paul Lischetti explained the development process at Westhampton Senior Housing and Dave Christopolis made opening remarks at the lunch discussion. Robin Sherman, executive director of the Franklin County Regional Housing and Redevelopment Authority, moderated the discussion.
Rural leaders going on the tour and particiapting in the discussion included Don Bianchi of the Massachusetts Assocation of Community Development Corporations, Pat Byrnes of The Regional Housing Network of Mass., Regina Curtiss of Greenfield Community College, Tim Geller of Community Development Corp. of South Berkshire, Brad Gordon of the Berkshire County Regional Housing Authority, and Clare Higgins of Community Action of Franklin, Hampshire and North Quabbin regions.
Also, Karen Koller of RCAP Solutions, Nathaniel Karns and Jaclyn Pacejo of the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, Alana Murphy of the state Dept. of Housing and Community Development, Lionel Romain of CEDAC, Diane Schindler, town administrator for Orange, Linda Dunlavy of the Franklin Regional Council of Governments, Jennifer Tabakin, town manager for Great Barrington, Susan Puddester and Cathy Marks Yamamoto and Carol Zingarelli of Higher Ground in Williamstown.
The tour and discussion was organized by MHP as part of its effort to work with rural housing leaders on challenges and opportunities. In 2014, MHP published a white paper on rural issues and it included six policy recommendations. The white paper was the product of public meetings, research and data collection, investigation of best rural practices in other states and the guidance of a 19-person steering committee representing rural communities from Cape Cod, the Islands and western Mass.
For more information about this event and MHP's efforts to promote affordable housing in rural areas, contact Carsten Snow at csnow@mhp.net.