Housing Trust Fund, Regular Meeting

1. 0:03It's very simple. You just have to kind of run to the floor. Okay. Um, can I have someone to make a motion to nominate Jeff? >> I make a motion to nominate Jeff. >> Thanks, Kelly. Um, have a vote. All in favor? Sorry. Second. Sorry. Someone make a second the nomination. I can second it. Okay. Jeff second. Okay. All in favor? >> I >> I >> I >> Okay, that passes. Um, so then the next thing um kind of homework is just to read the bylaws for the housing trust fund. So, the housing trust fund is uh nestled under HCPA, the Hudson Community Development Planning Agency. Um, and so since that board, they are technically the board that has like the real city power. So, the mayor serves on
2. 1:07that, the common council, the two council members, the planning board chair and the housing authority chair. Um, and so what's kind of nice about it is that they do the heavy lifting in terms of the bookkeeping and cutting checks and stuff. And our role is to um, we kind of create the budget. We give it to them to approve. You all make decisions about what do you want to fund, projects you want to focus on, and then HCPA has to be the one to approve any final decisions or anything. So our bylaws are included in their bylaws. So, um I will follow up with the link um so you guys can read them through. They're like two pages, so they're just good to know. Um and so their meetings are once a month at the end of the month. And so usually we meet the second week so that if we have to vote on decisions about funding or something, then we can give that to the HCPA in time. Um and so on that note, when we make resolutions, we do need to have in-person quorums. So right now we have six members. So a
3. 2:09quorum is four. Um if you have an excuse like you're ill or like a work conflict and you have to attend online that can count towards the quorum count. Um but if you just you don't have like an excuse like that then being online you can participate but doesn't count towards quum. So um okay. Is this going to be our regular meeting the second? >> If this works for you all. Okay. Cool. >> The city calendar is pretty booked, but >> yes. So, u if you guys want to move the time to 5 or 5:15 or 6, we can change there's room for that. So, >> that will be online. You said moving forward or in person. >> Okay. Yeah, that'll >> But if you guys want to move the time around, we can move it a little bit. flexible. Five would work for me though. >> It would. >> Yes, >> it would. I'm flexible, too. So, >> okay. Um, I'll check with Usha. Okay. >> I would like five. >> So, I'll check with them. Okay.
4. 3:12Um, Kelly or Ter, do you have any preference on the time? >> I'm fine with 5 or 5:30. >> Okay. >> Um, 5:30 works for me. Yeah. >> Okay. Five wouldn't work. >> Um, five would work too. >> Okay. Well, then I will propose with um I'll invite Luca and Margaret they can do five and then we can move it to >> good. Um Okay. So, in your packet I'll pull it up. Let's see. Um is this housing trust fund overview? Um, next. So, Kelly, this is what you saw at the April meeting. I'll send it an email. Um, it's really just like a a run through of the operating procedures, the advisory committee, um, some
5. 4:14accomplishments that having trust funds done so far, and then includes our budget. Um, the budget. So, the important thing to know is that we began with um the funds from the anti-displacement grant, which you're familiar with. Um and so we had seed funds of about 600,000 for the trust fund. And the plan was always to spend down the trust fund and then to add in city revenue um through at the time we thought the cannabis tax was an idea or the lodging tax or some other funds. So, we've been spending down and we're getting closer to like the the bottom of the housing trust fund. We about like 150. No, we got a little more about 200,000 left in there, but we haven't been increasing the funds um the way we had expected to. Um partly because I think the cannabis tax and the short-term rental tax didn't bring in as much as the city thought they would. Um and then I think also there's just been
6. 5:17a lot of change in politics um since 2020 and 2021. Um so one of the challenges and tasks for our board is like this year to think about what does that mean for the housing trust fund that we're going to be having a decreased budget with less revenue coming in. Um in the past the city was putting in money each year. Um they were putting in they were kind of increasing their amounts. So 2 years ago they put in I believe 30,000 >> um I think 30 or 40 something around there but then >> see >> last year they gave us like half of what they had been giving. >> Um so yeah that's a good question for us to think about um is that bigger frame. >> Was there any it's not time yet? >> It's not time yet. Okay. >> So, typically we make our budget, we kind of draft it in July and finish it
7. 6:20up in August and then it goes to the city um and HCPA in September. Um so, this gives us just a little bit of heads up to like in the next couple months be thinking about it. Um >> and thinking about I put in this like packet that I'll send again some housing trust funds run in different models. So, um, we are unique in that we're such a small city that has one. Most like places that have housing trust funds are much bigger cities and so they have a lot more revenue streams coming in, but Massachusetts does have a lot of housing trust funds in small towns. Um, and one other thing a bunch of their towns do is that they spend building years or they kind of build up funds, build up funds, and then in like maybe year five they spend a big chunk of it um on say like an example is like Great Bington has a housing trust fund and for like four years they're just kind of getting 10,000 here, 10,000 there, whatever. And then year five they put in like $150,000 to purchase a plot of land for Habitat
8. 7:25houses. >> Okay. and then the bank balance went back down, you know. So, that's a way that some of the social ones do it. >> Um, >> what we have been doing, so the housing trust fund um was set up to fund my salary um at and then the um the programs for each year. So, the main program we've been doing is Hudson Roots, which is the rental assistance um fund. >> And that's been a really good program um and it's been working really well. We did give less this year because we got less money. >> Um, Promise, we do it through Promise and they did they did find other funding for this year, but it's not every year. >> So, this is just kind of setting the stage that this will be a conversation we come back to. Um, and I'll kind of think of some ideas or ways we can think about this together. Um, and it's not something we need to solve tonight. Well, we do anticipate there will be less than level funding. >> Yeah.
9. 8:26>> Yeah. >> Particularly because of the budget issues that >> Yeah. And >> the fund can't accept funds like HC whatever sorry I never remember all the acronyms can accept funds on our behalf or like as a like 501c3 or is that I'm just like thinking about >> like yeah how how funds besides grants like can an individual make a donation or something? Yeah, >> we've talked about that once before, but I don't we didn't get it going. >> So, my understanding is that so our attorney is the HCPA attorney. We can't solicit >> Okay. >> fundraising, but we can accept >> um so we had like gotten a couple donations from some of the local banks that were pretty small. Um but we can't do like a fundraising drive, you know, >> we can let people know we exist.
10. 9:28>> Yeah. >> Yeah. But like >> there's a way. >> Yeah. >> But Greater Hudson like someone else could do a drive. >> Right. Right. >> Okay. Like that was one of the things that like because Tom DPH was um previously on the board and he's like okay well we can't if we can't give as much money to Hudson roots we can help promise like you know or support them and you know so there's like ways to kind of achieve the goals. >> Um but yeah we can't directly >> solicit funds. Um, >> but that's just I mean that's good to know just because >> that's a loophole a little bit. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I think on the point, Jeff, like I feel like when we first created the housing trust fund in like 2021, 2022, we did a lot of community engagement work and like events and then I think it's, you know, we've like decreased that over the past couple years. And I think part of like having new folks on
11. 10:31is like thinking about new ways to like go back to the community and >> talk about, you know, what we can do or >> and also things we can do without a lot of money. Um yeah, so on that packet again that I'll I'll resend there's like the budget for this year and um there is most of it's figured out. Um the big thing is that um we do have a small line that we haven't really touched uh like a small budget line um that is like kind of open for contingency just small projects. Um but in general our main project has been at some roots um so far and then the other things like the committee has done again without really spending money but for example we did a lot of thinking about like zoning policy and they were thinking about the ADU policy which you know is now became law through the council and there's grants and stuff
12. 11:35like that. So there's other ways the committee can have impact without just having, you know, money to spend. Um, okay. So then kind of the last thing um wanted to go through was looking at goals for this year. Um, think I can pull this up so that um people online can hear my screens. >> Can you share your screen or is it >> um Yeah, I am trying. So, >> oh okay. >> Give me one sec. >> Sorry. >> No, no, no. It's fine. um the city they could kind of share the like whoever shares the tech and we all have different settings for it. Okay. Um, Kelly,
13. 12:52can you see? Okay, great. So, I want to just walk you guys through. So, our comprehensive plan was um adopted in the fall and there's a whole housing section and we can kind of think about um what in here stands out to you as things that are really worth working on now and also kind of feasible that's like in our um in our capacity to work on. Um, so you guys have the copy there. Um, so I can make this a little maybe not. Okay. So, um, again, I'll share this an email so you guys can look it over, but the big objectives were looking at our zoning code, increasing
14. 13:55capacity, and then creating an anti-displacement framework. Um, so land use strategies, updating our zoning code. Um, something important to know is that the city, um, so we got a a grant, um, to do a resoning. Um, and right now I'm working on like the contract materials and stuff, but we're going to be putting together like a committee to help guide the zoning update. And this is something that can be really impactful and thinking about how do we make it easier to develop or, you know, do small edus or, you know, kind of just make it easier for people to make housing. >> Um, and so this is a way that I think our committee can be involved in thinking about some things for that. Um similarly an affordable housing overlay idea of adding to the zoning. Um basically if you're doing affordable housing it's easier to get things passed through um planning orders and the form based code is part of that.
15. 14:59That's like zoning. >> That's all that zoning. >> Can I interrupt you a second? Can you list this for us? Um like at some point some point provide us the barriers the zoning barriers that are that exist now. >> Sure. >> That we because I think it'll help. >> Yeah. Um Kelly, do you want to say anything about that? I feel like you work with some of this zoning barriers that exist right now. >> Oh yeah. Uh I mean you don't you can't have additional dwelling units. So in your So if you wanted to build an additional dwelling unit like in your backyard or turn like your garage into an apartment, that's not allowed in our zoning, which as we know like there's so many carriage houses and back buildings in Hudson. So that's like a whole housing stock that like we are missing out on. And then I mean in general a lot of the fire code and like electrical code I
16. 16:04guess that's kind of different but anyway um that's the main one that I know Michelle I don't know if there's like other ones but >> um yeah I think a big thing is that our so we have like such a historic city right and it's like smaller buildings and denser and it's very walkable our zoning code is from like I think it's the ' 60s or the 70s and it actually puts like a very suburban kind of framework. So think about let's say there's like a lot on Columbia Street and we like okay we could get money to do a duplex there or something. The zoning code wouldn't actually allow you to do a duplex that matches all the other street like how did that exist? It would kind of make you create this like skinny box car thing >> like the zoning code doesn't actually match what we have. >> Understood. >> Okay. Um, and so it requires like a lot of or it kind of requires a lot of um like green space per dwelling unit. So let's say you wanted to maybe kind of like have a certain maybe like a
17. 17:07triplex and there's like a shared garden or something. It would be like no, there's not enough green space or whatever. So stuff that's like there's good reasons for it, but then over time it makes it just really hard to do anything. >> Okay. >> Yeah. Also, one one other thing is like to have a zoning law that like if it's affordable housing, I remember we were talking about this is like the historical zoning doesn't apply if you're building an affordable housing unit cuz >> adhering to the historical >> board or I don't even remember the name of it is like actually really uh difficult. >> Yeah, we was talking about that. Yeah. And I think I think people sometimes hear this stuff and they think that like it could be like, "Oh, just put housing up everywhere. We don't care about how things look." But that's not really the case. Like the actual >> the actual zoning doesn't match what people want, >> you know. Um, does that kind of help answer that?
18. 18:08>> No, it does. I wanted everybody else to I mean I'm living some of it. >> Oh, yeah. I mean, >> but I think it's important just juxtaposed to what we're looking at so we can understand how to maneuver >> and I think making it tangible for people. >> Yes. >> Understand. >> Um, so yeah. So these are something that again doesn't cost us money but something that we can think about and kind of put input into and also help out with like ways to make this more relevant. It's such a like jargony concept. So, how do we make this um something that like people can want to engage with and talk about because it affects all of us like the way the buildings we live in and stuff. >> Um so the next bucket on here is about capacity. Um I think this is a really interesting time to think about this. So thinking about the city and I I mean that in like lowercase C as well capital >> C >> is capacity to handle affordable housing issues because the housing authority is going through this
19. 19:10>> big redevelopment. It's going to kind of change some of your capacity and stuff. >> Galvin is changing as an entity. So I think that's an opportunity to change up >> or bring in more you know and you know thinking through this city like you know what do we need to place here um >> so I think this is something you know for us to think about some things that are um some of these things are about for developers like how to make it clear for developers to kind of do affordable housing but some of it honestly is like thinking through if someone's looking for housing. Like the best thing I can do is give them like 15 different phone numbers to call >> and like that just takes up so much time for people. Um and to get on all those waiting list, it's >> it's like it's not simple. And so that's something else we want to think about like how can we make kind of pull there is and make it easier for people to access >> um information or potential housing and stuff. Um, and I think also like having
20. 20:15more conversation between and among like the different groups that do housing programming. Um, Joanie at Promise did a good job of like reaching out to a bunch all the different groups and like what rentals do you have? What do you have? What are the rules? And putting together like one guide. >> But I think there's more we can do to make it like if someone has a question about I need help, we can make it easier for people to understand how do you access that. Um since vacant building law, this one is we've talked about this a little bit. Um something else. So we have a law that's on the books that basically ask the code of department to make a inventory of all the buildings that are vacant and then to um find owners if they don't if they're not doing anything with the buildings. there's been a lot of challenges in actually implementing that. Um, but one of the things is that the county has a
21. 21:18housing task force and um, they have a grant that's going to be doing like a big study of vacant buildings in the county and thinking through different strategies to activate them so that if they're just like sitting there for some no reason like we can help get them back to be like maybe affordable housing. So that's something too where like this committee can kind of give some input into the county's study with that. >> Um and then this one, the anti-displacement framework is one of the most it's more creative and a little bit harder to implement but then to think about. Um there's like a adopt a right to stay in return policy which looks at people who are displaced from a city due to costs and like what would that mean to try and make it easier for them to get like priority housing. Um I I think there's a lot of pros and cons to this and when we made the comp plan I was like I there's
22. 22:22a lot of things to think about like it's a lot really hard to because Ronda and I talked about this a lot. Um, and one of the things that, you know, we thought about in the past with like people don't want to be on a registry or list or have to be like, you know, like or how do you prove that you live somewhere? You know, it it gets very complicated, but we just threw it on here as something that fraught of like how do we make sure that people get in the housing who need the most, who want to be in Hudson. >> Um, >> how do you how do they how do they get priority, >> right? And then there's also fair housing law. >> Yeah. >> Um community transferation. Um we can talk more about that. Um future meetings that create permanent affordable long-term housing. Um and then these last two. Um the first one is thinking about financing tools to help homeowners and landlords make small rehab. So, we've been getting some small grants from the state to do housing rehab projects for
23. 23:28homeowners, and there's a new one for small landlords. Um the thing about these grants is that it's a lot of work to get them and they're slow and there's a lot of barriers but like are there ways that and maybe this is one of the things of like thinking about how the capacity of like the new Galvan entity you know whatever Bard's doing with that like can we kind of build up more capacity so that the right group has these grants running consistently um or if there's a financing fold it's like a revolving loan fund or thing cuz that's a big issue too is that for homeowners or small landlords the costs are so expensive. >> Um any thoughts on that pause for a second? >> I think it's something good to look at and particularly have the um the other part of it is that you have difficulty getting somebody to actually do the work. All of those things come into play. So you need to have the money ready when you do find someone. So just trying to get a steady pipeline is is a
24. 24:33good idea. >> Yeah. >> Um and the last one is thinking about how we can do more of education, >> right? Um, part of the thing I'm thinking too is that there's been so many new residents in the city and I don't know both of them and like, you know, how do we kind of reach out to longtime residents and also newer residents about what are their needs, but also where are their gaps and people's understanding about the housing issues and stuff. And um, this is something that I'm like really interested to hear everyone's thoughts are and how we could what we could do moving forward. Okay. Um, >> I'm really I'm curious if it would at all be possible to set up like I feel like Hudson and housing is like everybody knows about that as one of the main issues and similar to the ways that like people are sustaining donors to kites nest and all these another local or the library or like if there's a way to engage the public like that way
25. 25:37especially with the like statistic that there obviously is a lot of money here and like people really respond to like oh $20 a month but you know that adds up depending on how many people you have >> right right >> I don't know if that model works within like how we're financially structured but I do feel like that's a very successful model in our town >> right yeah Yeah, that's what I think of that. Um, yeah. So, basically, um, wanted to give this to you guys as to like look at and you can spend the next between now and our next meeting like reading it over thinking about what you think is most energizes you or like what do you want to work on. Um, I think always like one or two things is probably all we can handle. So, we don't want to take on too much. Um,
26. 26:41and uh, yeah, I think those are kind of the the thoughts are like thinking about long-term funding and thinking about other projects or goals you can take on. >> Um, that's all I really have for today. Do you guys have any um, things you want to ask or bring up or talk about? Okay. >> Yeah. Pepper, Kelly. Okay. Um, so our next meeting is a month from now, June 10th. Um, we can move it to five. I'll confirm with Margaret and Misha. >> But I I'll I'll uh >> you can send me some thoughts. >> Yeah. I'll try and I'll try to make it online, too. >> Um, and I'll send this stuff in a packet just so you have some things for me to think about. Um and any public comment? >> No. Okay. Um sure. Do you want to call
27. 27:44our meeting to order to end? >> Uh you definitely need to take motion. We just call meeting. >> Yeah. >> Yep. This meeting is adjourned. >> Okay. Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Thank you all. >> Thanks for coming. >> Yeah. Thanks, Ter. Thanks, Kelly. Feel better, Kelly. >> Thank you. Bye. See you next month. Bye. Bye.

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