Last night the Planning Commission considered the so-called evolutionary changes Town Council President Tom Gentz is proposing for the State affordable housing law.
I should have had several glasses of wine, or something stronger, before attending...
We have been reporting on the doublethink aspect of the evolutionary changes, where low-cost properties owned by millionaires count as affordable housing and there is no mention of providing clean and decent rental housing.
The discussion session Thursday night reinforced those points as if repetition will make truth. This time, instead of a solo act by Mr. Gentz we had a duet of Mr. Gentz and Ruth Platner, Chairperson of the Planning Commission. We got to hear the familiar stanzas of Evil Greedy Developers, Nasty Expensive Leech-like Children (now called Cost of Services) and Horrendous Over-development. We were treated to pure inventions like "developers can build affordable units in wetlands". Ms. Platner told the audience that we cannot consider anything much different than Mr. Gentz's proposal. It sounded like she had some strong feeling of ownership.
As we have stated, the Gentz/Platner proposal wipes out the idea of lower-cost homes for lower-income families by just counting the lower-cost properties in town. The town has a goal of around 330 Low-Moderate Income (LMI) properties. The State definition includes the requirement that a qualifying person or family be living there. By counting all residential properties below the LMI limit we suddenly have a huge inventory. How huge? It was clear that no one had a good estimate last night so I piped up with the result of my analysis, about 15 minutes of work after getting the spreadsheet from Ken Swain - "around 900 units". Mr. Gentz seemed surprised (I don't have links to the ClerkBase video yet) and was pleased that our affordable housing issues will be solved under his plan. No need to invite any more
Gentz and Platner were repeatedly told that a proposal that wipes out the entire concept of Low-Moderate Income Housing was not going to fly at the State House. They were undeterred and Mr. Gentz talked about mustering forces with the other rural towns to make this happen.
They are so damned stubborn that they will not even consider or talk about the reasonable alternatives that could be implemented with no or small changes in the state law and changes, or implementing provisions already there, in the town's Comprehensive Plan and Affordable Housing Plan.
Those possibilities will be saved for future articles.
But we have a revised schedule of events going forward - now the Planning Commission and the Affordable Housing Commission will each work on advisory opinions on the Gentz/Platner proposal and deliver them by December 2 to be discussed after the TC agenda meeting on December 7.
The two Commissions were told to work separately. Interesting, I don't think each Commission can be prohibited from attending the meetings of the others... I look forward to attending the Commission meetings and the December 7 meeting and reporting the progress to you.
If I don't yank all of my fingernails out first.
Disclosures: 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. The author feels that the current Affordable Housing law can be improved and is an advocate for providing opportunities for young families and single people in Charlestown. He believes there are ways to do that without developing 2,000 new homes and he has cynical thoughts about the true motivations behind this proposal. The author also needs to work on the getting the terminology about Affordable Housing correct but there isn't time today. (This disclosure section seems to be getting longer with each article...)