At the last Town Council meeting on October 11 Tom Gentz introduced his plan for evolutionary changes to the State Low and Moderate Income Housing Law. He explained that we have to do this on a fast track to get the legislation changes into the queue in January for the next legislative session.
So I expected that we would learn more about it very soon. Silly me!
The materials he provided prior to the Town Council meeting talked about change but studiously avoided mentioning any specific change. In one place it was written like a Republican manifesto for giving the rich more money - he wanted to make changes to increase construction jobs without giving any clue about how. And the materials contained intriguingly unexplained pages like a map from the Salt Ponds Region Special Area Management Plan.
I looked forward to how his talk at the meeting would expand on that and give us details. But basically he read the first page of the materials and then demanded to be permitted to work with the town lawyer to draft a new state law proposal. He said he would do that with citizen input before bringing it to the Town Council on November 14. Note that he did not say which citizens would be giving the input.
Marge Frank asked him what parts of the law he intended to change. Gentz mentioned some aspects of the current law and referenced the four maps but he gave no specifics that actually required a change in the law. Will summarized his conclusions here.
Gregg Avedisian brought up the question of how the Affordable Housing Commission would be involved. The town Pipeline Newsletter published a few days later contained this sentence: The Town Council authorized Mr. Gentz to work with the Affordable Housing Commission to draft these changes.
So I decided to attend the next Affordable Housing Commission meeting on October 19 to hear what would be discussed there. The answer is not so much...
Despite Gentz's statement about citizen input and the several statements about Affordable Housing Commission involvement, Mr. Gentz told the Affordable Housing Commission that they will get to review and react to the proposal when it is completed. And that may be only a few days before the next Town Council agenda meeting, when their comments would be due.
Gentz said that there are only notes now that had been given to the lawyer. When he was asked whether the Affordable Housing Commission could have a copy of those notes he told them no. Then he repeated that they would see the proposal when it was complete.
I should have mentioned sooner that Tom Gentz is the Council Liaison to the Affordable Housing Commission. As such he is charged with helping that Commission do its job well.
It is certainly clear that:
- If any citizens, outside of the CCA Steering Committee, are involved it is a select few who have been chosen in secret and are working in secret
- The process is being designed to exclude the Affordable Housing Commission although the Commission chairperson, Evelyn Smith, knows more about Affordable Housing law than the sum of everyone in the room at a typical Town Council meeting.
Please don't misunderstand my intent - I have issues with the way Affordable Housing works too. For instance I think the focus on homes to purchase is outlandish. I know people who would qualify for Affordable Housing and their focus is on finding a place they can afford to rent while being able to buy groceries. But that goes beyond the topic of this article.
Disclosure: the author's wife, Suzanne Ferrio, is a member of the Affordable Housing Commission but she makes him attend the meetings if he wants any information before the meeting minutes are released. Even offering to prepare dinner while she's at the meeting doesn't change her mind.