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Home My WebLink AboutMHC 09/19/2018A meeting of the Board of Directors was held on Wednesday 9/19/2018. Present were Chairperson, Marilyn Lewis; Vicechair Randy Waters, Treasurer, Connie Baynes; Secretary, Lou Amoruso and member, Jeffrey Wagner. Sean Grammel was absent. The meeting was held in the MBC meeting room at Town Hall and called to order by Marilyn at 7:05 PM. The business was postponed until after meeting with our guest. Town Planner Shaun Burke was the invited guest of the Board of Directors and was present for the start of the meeting. He opened providing some information to us that the Board wanted to know about: Mansfield currently has 10.8% of its housing stock available as affordable as defined by the DHCD. Station Pointe (formerly Mansfield Depot) will remain as part of those units through 2022 because of some refinancing that was done with HUD by the owners. Our next Housing Production Plan update will come in 2019. Mansfield is one of about 30-45 towns that have passed inclusionary (local) bylaws and to date none have been challenged in court. The median cost of an affordable house in Mansfield is currently $276,523.00. This number is established and calculated by DHCD based on the median sales price for a home and subtracting the median income for the region that the town is in. We are currently in a region that includes Norton, Dighton, and Taunton, but not Boston or Providence. Shaun then spoke about potential ways that this board could go forward and things that we could do. He urged that the board could use a housing person to come in and work with/for us as a consultant, but not as a Town employee. Shaun finished his discussions and left with the thanks of the board. He was informed that the board was looking for such a person to assist us in our work. The meeting continued. Lou presented the minutes of the previous meeting. Marilyn moved and Randy seconded the minutes of the 6/20/18 meeting. Passed Unanimously Connie presented the treasurer's report. FY07-08 ended with a balance of $462,567.88 in our account after total expenses of $79,300.48. Connie pointed out that interest is not taken out and assigned to individual accounts monthly, nor at the same time each year. it is done basically when the Town Treasurer decides to do it. After some possible discrepancies with the DPW and our voted maximum expenditure for the Columbine sewer project, we agreed to share the costs with the Town using our voted maximum amount of $50,000.00 for the sewer line extension and stubs to the property. There were no expenses for July 2018 to end the Town's fiscal year. Lou moved and Jeff seconded the report which passed unanimously. Marilyn then reported on her knowledge of the Columbine project being built by Old Colony Habitat. She called Ken Owens of Habitat for an update. He said that most of the 17-18 applicants did not qualify for the hosing. They have 3-4 worthy applicant but were unsure if any of them were from Mansfield ("maybe 1 or 2"). Oct 10 is scheduled for the lottery if all are vetted by then. It will be advertised to the public. Habitat held a silent auction that raised money to benefit this project which reportedly makes available about $125K toward the building of the affordable unit. They hope to select one contractor who the hope will finish (?) the project within 35-40 days and be in their hands by Thanksgiving. There may be many volunteers from CVS to work on the house and they are looking for volunteer managers. They are having weekly building meetings currently. Habitat said they had met with Town Manager Dumas and that he expected them to have the building permit in hand by Friday of the week of this meeting. Ken was very excited about the project and they are looking to get going with the general contractor and have the volunteers that will do inside work buttoned up soon. Marilyn expressed her disappointment that we had not been kept in the loop on any of this. It is good from our point of view, but we asked for and need involvement. She was told that they may now be looking with the Town at other lots owned by the Town for further affordable housing, and Columbine may be the site for such further units. Connie is still going over the invoices on this project to get an exact figure for our expenditures. She had invoices for $48,221.26, but about %2500 may yet be invoiced. She is continuing this work to get a solid number. NEW BUSINESS The photo op for the board is postponed. We still have time. Connie wrote an article for the Town web site and it is up and running. She agreed to check on how many "hits" it has received. This might be a good site for us to use for communications with the public. We discussed that there are interviews being scheduled for the October meeting for a person to help us do our work. Marilyn wants us to be a resource where people can go to get information on obtaining affordable housing. Marilyn also reported that the John Walsh building is proceeding apace and that the 3 condos he is building as affordables for Willowdale should run about $205K each. They are scheduled to be built in the spring. Marilyn moved adjournment. Passed unanimously at 8:32 PM. Respectfully submitted, Lou Amoruso 12/b-ln' ^f C, r-> ..r-...Y- CJI N'"y r y n� M CO _'ilk'77 T