Rockport Affordable Housing Trust, Oct. 14, 2026

There we go. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. So, I'm calling to order the Rockport Affordable Housing Trust meeting, and I'd like to do a roll call vote to establish a quorum.

Bob Simmons. Aye. And Ken Kaiser. Here. And myself, Diane Bella. So three is a quorum for our smallest quorum, but is a quorum to begin our meeting. So I'm calling the meeting to order and I have to look at the exact time, 633. So we will be looking. First, I wanted to, before we move on to the approval of the September 9th minutes, I would want to make sure that I draw everybody's attention to the resignation of Patricia, that she needed to do that, which puts us, again, a little shy on members. So we'll be continuing

to look at. Thank you to Patricia for what she offered to us. It was really great. She really had a lot of good things for us. So we regret that she had to leave us. And also, Laura Evans is not with us tonight. She has not returned to public life yet, and we send her our condolences for the loss of her long, long, long time husband and the father of her four children. So we'll be

happy to have her back, and we understand that she needs to take a rest. So you all have a copy of

the minutes. I'm sorry, Christina, I did not send those to you, but I can. If do we have any questions or comments on the minutes? This was the first time that the

town employee, Carrie, did these minutes for us, which was wonderful. I think she did a great job. I was very, very pleased with what she did. We met a couple of

times and change the format so that works for us. So I would entertain a motion to accept or

have any additions or edits to the minutes for the meeting of September the 9th.

Ken, you don't have to read it. Okay, I move that we accept the minutes as presented.

very they're very thorough very good and and I have a second W Bob second

gotta be the second so nothing to change so roll call vote to accept the minutes as written for the meeting of September 9th Bob Simmons and and Kaiser I and

and Diane Bell, it says aye, so that passes unanimously. Moving on to agenda item number three, the Rockport Exchange, any other opportunities? Ken and I did mostly were there for the Rockport Exchange. Ken, do you have any comments about how it went? Well, we were there for two different Saturdays and they were very interesting. The first one was a little slow, but the second one was quite good. We had a lot of people both from within Rockport and without who showed interest. And interestingly enough, almost every Rockport person who has stopped by

had never heard of the Rockport affordable housing twice before. So that exposure that we got was very useful. And I think we should do this again next season. For sure. I think that this was our foot in the water for some community engagement. Yeah. And it was very interesting that the second time we were there seemed to draw more attention. Yeah. I agree. I would like just to think about,

you know, there are other opportunities for us to do things. For instance, we're too late this year, but like the Harvest Fest is one that we might be able to do something at.

Certainly we will go back at the Rockport Exchange for those which we really appreciate. The

Rockport Exchange complements, gives complimentary space to not-for-profits and in parts of the

town government municipality which is enormously generous of them to do that. We had a great spot.

Yeah they were very helpful in helping us manage and actually they put up our tent for us which was great. That was very helpful. You know one of the things we talked about was you know every once in

a while you do see people at the transfer station with passing out information we have a really nice full color brochure now that we pass out that is now also on our town website if people did a copy

of it is there that could could read it and take a look at a lot of the information we put on that pretty dense little trifold brochure but you know I would like us to think about

where in the course of the new year in 27 where might we be and where might we get more visual

exposure for a community engagement to have conversations at our booth we had little

things for kids to play with. We had little key chains in which we put the QR code for the trust

website on it so that people would go to it and the kids then did some artwork, very specific artwork on there. And our message was it was an empty key chain,

people without housing. That was our subliminal message, not so subliminal. A lot of kids were making it for the grandparents, which was very interesting. So Bob, if you have any suggestions,

or Christina, if you have any suggestions where we might show up, what do you think? Do you think we should think about doing a stint at the transfer station? Can you unmute Christina, Frank? Yeah, so I'd be willing to volunteer and do a stint at the transfer station. I'm thinking probably right after Thanksgiving it's going to be a busy day. What do you think, you know, I mean, again, it's just, it's just getting our name out and handing people our brochure and telling them who we are.

I'll call the transfer station, find out what, there has to be some procedure to be there. So this is a strange question, but, and I know it's very seasonal, but the farmer's market does not have nonprofits there, correct?

Oh, yeah, they do. that might be a place to do this. Well, that's what the Rockport Exchange is. That's where we were for two times. Okay. We weren't there, obviously. They only allow two times for the freebies. Okay. So they can distribute it. So, and, you know, and we picked those two dates.

Okay. We picked those two dates hoping that there would be more Rockporters and less tourists. Okay. I'm happy to volunteer and I'm happy to do it at the transfer station. I used to volunteer at the, you know, the transfer station in Marblehead. So, oh, really? So, so, you know, we have a transfer shack in Rockport, but the one in Marblehead is, I don't know, 20 times the size. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. It's huge. Okay. So that's a good, we'll get back with you. Let me get back with you. Let me check with the transfer station, find out what the deal is. What do you think about that? Ken, do you have an opinion about that? I think that's a good idea. Okay. very good idea Bob yeah yeah that's a good idea I'm trying to think of other other places but

well somebody's just paying attention to what's going on in town I think yeah and seeing how we

can I think that Shailen Liu is probably going to do another on the town event next year that

attention so that could be another possibility. Okay. Okay so we'll love that certainly and the um and do the the farmers market again.

So we'll see other things. Things do pop up for a different community event. The Harvest Fest, we missed the deadline and they do give one to the town. So it's the DPW that's going to be there this time. So I don't know. Again, we have some time that we can ask. How do we, could that be us next year? So representing the town. So great. Just send me your ideas as you see them. Select board updates, obviously we don't have any because Laura is not here, so we will skip that one this time.

And Bob, we can talk about seasonal communities, and thank you for sending us the what can a seasonal community do.

Yep. And I just sent about a half hour ago notes here, but I can share them on the screen instead.

That's easier for folks, but you should all have a copy of the Word document that I emailed at 6 o'clock.

Yeah, I sent it with the packet, I think. Okay. Frank, do you have to share the screen or can Bob do that? He should be able to do. Okay. Yeah. It looks like I can. Oh, you have a draft bylaw. This is new. Well, this, I mean, this is just really talking points. After going through the 22-page model code that the EOHLC has finally issued last week,

right after we started about halfway into ours.

Now we're re-looking at it all and trying to follow the model here, I think, with the planning board. But I just thought I'd try to go over some of the several issues that come up,

uh, even as I am trying to figure out exactly what we've got here, the, uh, the tiny, the tiny houses and the tiny lots is what we're kind of referring them as right now. Cause there's two, there's two pieces to the zoning that we're required to make, uh, in the next two years or year and a half at this point. And, um, The first one is tiny house zoning, which is more to do with the tiny house itself. And then there is an undersized lot thing.

thing. And, uh, not only is there an undersized lot thing, but totally separate from the seasonal communities is the other effort that governor Healy is trying to, uh, put on the ballot, uh,

or has put on the ballot, um, which, uh, which is sort of like a tiny lots, uh, decree where,

uh basically she's she's going to be forcing uh cities and towns to uh go down to a 5 000

square foot lot as a right anyway so um the tiny uh whether or regardless of whether you're a

seasonal community or not they're trying to push through some legislation that would would reduce the typical communities, you know, minimum lot size from 10 or sometimes 20,000 down to 5,000 which will be a big change. So there's a lot of balls in the air. There's a lot of things going on. And we're kind of trying to just see how these model codes are working out so far and whether they contradict each other a little bit or not. There's a bunch of things we're going through. But anyway, I won't put up the entire 22 pages of the model code.

But basically, I sort of went through the model code, and I tried to figure out what things would be prescient to this group

and which way we would want to go on certain issues that are not mandates. So the thing is full of things that are mandates that aren't negotiable and things that the town can decide on.

But just a little primer here first for people that haven't really spent much time with the tiny house stuff.

So the tiny house zoning is basically allowing, is in this first bullet point here, buy right to have a 400 square foot house without lofts, basements, and maybe garages.

The reason there's question marks there are is because A, we don't know really what the definition of a loft is, whether a occupiable basement counts, and whether you can add a

garage onto this unit, which wouldn't be in the spirit of a tiny house, but we just kind of need to know because these questions are going to be coming up. A tiny house is allowed to have

occupants with low and moderate income. The state requires 250% maximum AI or lower based on what the

town decides they want so that's a big question for us that's a big question that'll be a question for us and so with the 400 square feet actually we'll talk when we talk tell us when you want to take a breath and hear from us okay okay uh yeah so you're you're allowed to uh have tiny houses be

shi units or just lower income occupants or owners you know based on that second bullet point which

is you could just say everybody has an owner, an owner, occupier, or a renter, whoever's living in the house has, has to have a certain income. And that, that is one level of control, but it doesn't say that it doesn't control the

rent prices or the housing prices. So like an SHI unit would, and like an SHI unit would be managed.

But they're going for the goal of smaller is better, but they kind of don't want to, I think, allow these tiny houses to be $1,000 a square foot luxury mini mansions.

They are allowed to be multiple units clustered on a single lot. they're allowed to be on smaller lots smaller lots than it's typical for that

current zoning district so if it if the lot size was 10,000 square feet for a

typical residential district they would allow it to be 25% of that or 2,500

square feet. They can be developed for certified artists, essential public employees. You can put

restrictions on them that way also, or those can be voluntarily developed that way.

And you can allow tiny houses on wheels or THO Ws as they're calling them,

which is a big question too for probably more on the planning board side but

obviously there are some tiny houses that are on wheels that are significantly cheaper than

site-built ones and we have to decide whether we're going to go that way or not So that's basically what a tiny house is on a single lot or a cluster lot.

So the first questions that come up in the model code are, as we talked about, the maximum

the maximum AMI for occupants should we move it down from 250 to something and what should that

something be should it be 80 should it be 100 but this this could be just like a top a top level

cap sort of and it's possible that there could be other levels of sustainability and maybe those other levels of sustainability get better development rights smaller setbacks

smaller lots there's a bunch of ways you could go with that it's all a little bit of a blank

late there. So yeah like I said it could be non-SHI units that have a set income level but there's no set rent or price. You know the developer doesn't have to deal with or the owner doesn't have to deal with having a hiring a management company to do the yearly SHI type paperwork and such. And then you could of just the pure shi units um and there could be multiple levels of ami with different benefits

for each level of affordability i suppose um so we can talk about that for a moment

uh about what people feel about the maximum ai ami well i'll i'll i'll start ken i mean since

there's only a couple of this you know certainly i think um setting a ceiling at well over three hundred thousand dollars income a year is not what i would consider necessarily affordable

i'm very concerned with at the 400 square feet level our hpp and everything we know is this

town needs family housing and families are not going to be in 400 square feet Also, the other huge need in this town is for seniors who have some disabilities, and

that's not going to get into 400 square feet either. So these kind of tiny houses really eliminate two of the three greatest needs that we have

here. Clearly, I would strongly support SHI eligibility. Otherwise, building these kinds of new houses that are not SHI eligible, it makes our percentage,

we lose ground. We don't gain ground. We lose ground in terms of our SHI percentage. And that could potentially hurt us and continue to keep us vulnerable to an unfriendly 4DB developer.

So I strongly, strongly recommend that we get SHI eligibility in our HUD district.

You know, we can service 80 percent AMI is a substantial, substantial salary and does take into consideration when we look at the budget for our town for municipal workers.

It supports a lot of them that they would be SHI qualified.

Obviously, there has to be a consultant that would do that, that would add certainly to the cost. I understand that. And I'm not sure, in order to meet SHI requirements, if you can restrict who the occupants are.

They have to follow fair housing laws and fair housing laws does not restrict. And again, maybe

the tiny house laws override some of the fair housing laws, I'm not sure, but that would certainly be a question that you would have to ask. And I'm not clear about that, but it seems to me you can't restrict um who the occupants are in shi eligible housing yeah that that is a

thing is break in there um boston and somerville have it somehow and they're doing it um had what

say what's it for certified artists and i i want to find out they didn't i don't think in this model

code they specifically talked about either essential employees or artists but in the

original material they certainly did so i want to find out employees we would pick up on shi because our because our ami so hard we get them we'd get them if they if they applied for it they would certainly qualify um but artists in particular yeah yeah i'm not i'm not sure if if we could do that. So that would be a good question. In terms of the senior thing, too, you mentioned, I disagree slightly on the senior thing, because I think the existing senior housing at Granite Street is only 450 square feet, I believe. And it's mostly single seniors in there. Correct.

But I think all the units are ADA. And I think they're not too small to be working for seniors. But yeah, for families, I would say no. Yeah. For single mothers with one child, though, it could be a potential starter. You can't do that with SHI. They have to have two bedrooms. They won't, it's against the law. They won't do that. It has to be two. Exactly. So you can't do that. So then that would just be, see, what the tiny house really started out to do was to do attainable units as we sort of discussed a little bit before and they were they were just about if we build them smaller and we you know

make them inherently less expensive and they've added this attainable unit thing which involves income. I think that's why they're trying to say let's do this, see if these things actually

start getting built by regular builders out there who aren't savvy to the whole SHI system.

Well, obviously they would have to hire a consultant and I don't think I know of any for-profit builder that would build a tiny house that is ADA eligible because it would add an enormous amount of money to their cost to do something like that. So I do think, you know,

it really would hurt our seniors to stay put, you know, which is what most seniors say to us

they want to do. They want to stay put. So, Ken, do you have anything to add? Diane, do you think an 80% AMI would make sense for the cap? It would still qualify. And we know that our 60% AMI, that the housing kinds of things that the trust is looking at,

picks up an enormous amount of essential workers. 80% would just have even more. But again, it's a one person. Yeah, yeah. It's one person. The one person income, or it could easily be couples living here too.

If they had a separate bedroom, it could be a couple, yes. No, I mean just young couples without children could be taken as units. Or single artists, or couple artists. But, whatever. But, I'm trying to remember, I don't have the chart with me offhand. 80% AMI for one or two person household is. I don't have it in front of me either, but that's easy. 80% AMI for a single for one person is. 92,650 dollars. Yeah.

So would you would you expect developers to be interested in building these as a development or as cluster housing?

Well, we've actually had our first request for interest on that. Yes, they like the idea of the cluster development and they're like, you know, let's build some. Would they be looking to sell these units or to rent them? That I don't know. I don't know. um so i had somebody approach me um during my office hours um a person who owns a hunk of land

it's a six acre hunk of land and he was going to build a single family house and then he decided that he really doesn't need a big single family house but he's got a six bedroom septic system installed or designed to be installed and he's interested in doing a cluster of tiny houses and

he would either sell them or rent them to his friends who can't who grew up in rockwood but

can't afford to live there yeah well that's very altruistic but it doesn't help us in the s-h- you

know as you know i know but i my guess is that there may be other people out there or potentially

right a town property or two that might be able to accommodate i would be surprised unless the town property sells unless they sell it i'm not sure that the

town can give it to a private i don't know what the i'd have we'd have to look into the legal part of that. But again, you know, my obviously the trust's biggest concern is to get our SHI

percentage up to 10% or close to it to stave off somebody buying Whistle Stop Mall and putting in

a huge development there. And how would we only have, how would that qualify in terms of zoning? We only have four multi-family zoning districts in this town. I mean it would be really nice to have a whole lot more multi-family multi-family zoning districts here. What is the zoning board, what's their thoughts there? Can I ask just what? What, Christine? All five is multifamily. Multifamily is three or more.

Is that right? With a maximum of four. I mean, we have very strict multifamily zoning. Three or more, maximum of four in three or four, I can't remember now. very small zoning districts that allow that. Yeah, except for the 50 acres of the MBTA.

But nobody's got to sell. Somebody's got to sell there. Yeah. Nobody's selling there. So I don't know how, you know, how would you, if somebody comes in and wants to do a cluster house,

house that's a multifamily housing in a single this is specifically we're creating that we're allowing that to happen yeah but would you change the zoning or would you do that on a case-by-case basis we have to do it within two years and make it as of right so there's no stopping somebody from somebody that has a one acre two acre lot from building a cluster tiny house development there. We just have to figure out what the size of them should be. If there is a size limit on the number of units you could have in one ownership, one parcel. I mean, in the draft model bylaw,

they seem to want to encourage clusters of these tiny houses together. So obviously the zoning would change would have to be drafted to accommodate that. And I think one question I have is the density for such a cluster of tiny houses.

The state seems to want to encourage it. You know, I think it would be reasonably easy to draft something, but the density is what's going to be a key issue.

my other concern is is if you're not doing an shi and not indeed restricting it there's nothing

that prevents that cluster housing i don't know five ten years down the road for somebody to sell it and turn it into condos and short-term leases right nothing would prevent that well hold on yes that's not true no every year the if if we have attainable units if we if we say that every tiny

house has to be an attainable unit and it's restricted income every year they have to sign an affidavit saying that they've followed those rules and we can set the term for affordability

from zero to 99 years it can't be in perpetuity but we can have a renewal clause at 99 years that

it starts all over again. Okay. So that is and that again is up to the towns. All that the state of Massachusetts says is you have to have a period of your housing restriction.

Okay well that's good news. Yeah yeah so that helps and it's the other interesting thing is that is different than any kind of housing is a tiny house is 400 square feet if if you try to add on to it it's not a tiny house anymore so it's become a new use

and so then if it becomes a new regular single family dwelling it has to comply with all the regular setbacks and all the regular lot sizes i would say that's another complexity uh Betsy that

i started thinking about as these things are coming along it's not like you can a couple can buy one and start out they have a baby they want to stay there they want to add on a bedroom can't do that it's not so easy right um i mean so many how so many lots in rockport particularly

in the center like 3 000 square feet so um you know i i think the the lots particularly

that are served by water and sewer could be that small a lot um it's just the outskirts where

there's no water and there's no water or or sewer that you know we'd have to get a little bit bigger

lots to accommodate a septic system. Yeah, we'll get to that in a moment too, as we get down to the tiny lots portion of the discussion.

But yeah, we've done a little footwork on that too. Oh wait, is the zoning board open to, you know, understanding how these homes could hurt our,

if they're not going to do SHI or ask or insist that the builder does a certain percentage of these as SHI? Where does our inclusionary zoning fit in on this? Is it ignored? you know that would be a question certainly for that the trust would be asking and you know what

does the planning board do they think that if this is something that's going to be adding to our year-round dwelling units you know we're going to drop in terms of our percentage and

that again like I said makes us vulnerable and again for no families and families. Yeah well that's coming up next here in some of these points so yeah we can we can completely on a especially on a cluster development yes we can set a percentage is it 50% affordable or a hundred percent affordable or you know we could if that's kind of a blank slate I think there okay I think I think they I think they do allow that correct me if I'm wrong that seems like you would be able to do that the main the main two criteria are it cannot be a seasonal home and it has to have 10 months of owner occupancy period and for tiny

houses on tiny lots there are there isn't it seems to be is maybe a conflict in new model code but it seems you're not allowing any short-term rentals within that two months that you might not occupy your house if you're also on a tiny lot so to me once you have 10

months of occupancy i could see taking off for the summer for two months and making some more income on your your tiny house and your tiny well people do that people do that for sure and you know yeah Yeah, it might be hard to control that anyway. But I think that, you know, the town needs to understand these things that you can't control that. So that, you know, there would be, you know, the two months in the summer that they could lease this out as a short-term lease.

The artists would want it the opposite way. They'd want to be here in the summer and leave them in the winter. Well, we would think, yes. Yeah, I think that's why they did the 10 month thing. They'll make it quasi-flexible there. And it doesn't totally support schools, but they're small houses, so it's not really about children.

Not at all. It's what they call them the dinks, dual income, no children, no kids. It's dinks and single seniors and single artists or single young people. And if they're making a lot of money with that high ceiling of 250% of the AMI, I mean, this could be a second home for people.

And how do we monitor if they're living there? I mean, it would be a second home. And it's just... Yeah, no, that's... I mean, they've got to sign the affidavit every year. and uh well that that they're living that they're they don't might not be actually physically there but they're not renting it to anybody people have second homes that they don't live in yeah they don't let anyone again again we're we're setting this ami we're not we're not we're not living with the 250 we can take it down to 30 of ami if you want uh it's the question that's why I'm asking the question. We could do a starving artist community. Starving artist at 30.

And uh, yeah, 30% of the AMI is what, about 30,000. That's basically minimum wage for a single person.

Yeah, or even somebody on social security. Yeah, so that's the question. So do we start at 80? Do we

started 60. What's our what's our preference here? Ken you didn't weigh in I don't think on AMI.

Well I mean I really would have to have to take a look at that. I mean 80% is the highest and again it's anything under it means anything under 80%. percent so that gives you that gives you the biggest flexibility yeah okay um

ken do you have anything else i know you've been looking at this no not at the moment i share your same concerns that we have to be very careful that this doesn't make our job harder by by trying to get a higher percentage of portable units. Yeah. So one of the questions that's probably not a lot of a concern to us necessarily is cluster cottage developments could be, they give you the option of having that to be as a right or special permit only, or it could be site plan review only, I suppose, too. which we sometimes have usually in any, any, any multifamily or

development with significant parking, usually the planning board does site plan review.

So we're thinking about that. I don't have a bad feeling about letting cluster developments be as

of right with site plan review but um so we can kind of control traffic a bit talk about traffic

have them present traffic information and uh parking information ahead of time before fall final approval all that good stuff that doesn't have too much to do with our group

so this this uh these bylaws that were are being written they would have to go before town meeting and have to have a two-thirds or simple majority vote? I think all zoning changes are two-thirds, as I recall. Yes, they are. So this will be a two-thirds vote. So the next bullet was period of year-round housing restriction. We must have one. It can't be in perpetuity. although I saw Truro did theirs in perpetuity that you sent me Ken but I think there's some lawyerly debate about all that but but I had heard this

thing about 99 years and I guess 99 years is how land trusts operate and the the period of housing restriction can be 99 years but if the house sells it from news to a new 99-year period like land trusts tend to do. So I don't, I don't, my opinion, I guess

there's no point to do 30-year restrictions. No. But I'll let everybody else weigh in there.

Well, it kind of depends on how everything else is constructed. but you know if you're limiting this to year-round I mean what we want is year-round

people but predominantly year-round families so you know I just I'd really have to

all of these fit together like a puzzle in my mind and it depends on what the pieces of the puzzle the select board comes up with would determine what I would think personally yeah like for the restrictions of the period of the lease or yeah deed

I can see a lot of interesting things happening with cluster developments yeah but if the wife and two kids buy one unit and the father bus right next store to have some interesting issues. You still have to have two bedrooms in each one. Yeah, that's true. So, not likely. A two-child family could... Yeah. A two-child family depends... Well, if you do an SHI, it depends on the sex. If it's a boy and a girl, they have to have their own bedrooms. Yeah. If it's two daughters, they can share a bedroom. So they have some very, some strict rules about these things.

Yeah. So the period there. Okay, so this is where it gets a little complicated because I'm not sure if this is a flaw in the model code, Betsy, or not. but it states in there a tiny house on a tiny lot or a protected use ADU can never be used

for seasonal home or a short term rental unit, which leads me to think as far as the tiny

house zoning goes, a tiny house on a normal lot could be allowed to do short term rentals again. So that was just that other thing we have to, the planning board has to think about And, uh, again, I don't think it's a big impact for, um, affordability.

Um, I just, in thinking about, you know, artists housing and central employee

housing, I just thought having a, having a two month period where you could do short-term rentals would be a major, uh, benefits financially. and small families starting out or couples. I also think it's pretty unlikely that essential

workers in this town do not have families. So yeah well again this is tiny houses as defined right are simply not for families.

Well, but you can't, I mean, but again, if you're selling it for essential workers, that implies, you know, I just think it's the languaging and the selling of it. You've got to be really careful and be honest with people about what you're doing. Something at 400 square feet for an essential worker is just unlikely, at least when I go to town hall, most of those people have families.

Yeah, either younger people, widowed people or... Right, if you're going to be trying to use this... Singles, divorced fathers, mothers. Exactly, you're going to be attracting people into the town, which is what the town needs, needs workers to work here. Are they going to be wanting a tiny house?

I just think we just got to be, you know, they talk about having a needs assessment in here. Is it that there is money for allow season of communities to develop a comprehensive housing needs assessment? Well, we did that with the HPP. We do have a needs assessment. I mean, that's what the trust is making decisions about how we want to go forward. We have a needs assessment. And I just, you know, I just think we really got to, I wish the town had a comprehensive plan for housing.

Because, you know, this is a nice idea, but is it meeting the needs for the community here?

That what we need in that. So I really have some problems with it because it's a great idea.

But does it fit in a seasonal community? Does it fit into a town that is a predominantly a tourist retirement community that's losing its schools?

Because to me this is adding to the problem not subtracting from the problem. Yeah. And that's that you know so far so far you've got a long ways to go. Well, this does help address, you know, it's basically, it does address, you know, the

single or double income singles that are trying to be the work staff for the restaurants and

the shops and everything around here and that could never ever afford to buy a house on their home so it's trying to bring those people closer it's it's uh it might not be addressing our our current demographic as much although i could see for all of this the single seniors here i still think this is a viable alternative and one that you don't have to go through a lottery system or something like that to acquire a house a lot of these people spend years on these lottery

systems and then they have to move out of their town to go to a town that accepted them you know all those kinds of things that's what you're referring to what you're referring to bob is the housing authority issue they're on they're on a list like that that is not how they do it the lot of you you get into the lottery for the town you want to be in so i think that that's

that you know that that's a little bit of a misnomer so we've got to be yeah well to some degree but if you're desperate for a house you're probably applying to six towns you want to be in. Anyway, next point here is movable tiny houses.

Planning board has to discuss you know do we allow these at all? You're not required to allow them and are they on rented land purchase land both or none

is one of the things we'll be grappling with in again I don't know how this

affects us so much in regarding SHI or SHI units necessarily. I do like the idea of a

movable tiny house on purchased land where at least the person that bought the movable

tiny house can get some appreciation not with their house but with their land value before they before they move on. Yeah and I just want to do a time check. We're at 7 30 Bob

and we've got other things on the agenda. So you know let us take a look at this and send it to us

so that we can have you know do some digesting and give you know when does you know when are you guys continuing to meet so we can continue to have this this conversation. But it's great that You've gotten this far. I think it's a much better idea of what what we're looking at. Yeah

We will We have it on the agenda for our planning board meeting tomorrow You know probably just be basically going over the same stuff that okay We talked about here because we we really haven't our subcommittee is not meeting until the 20 what is it uh betsy the 22nd yeah so you you do have the planning board has a uh designated

subcommittee on this yes yeah yeah which is uh so so in that designated subcommittee we originally

had a meeting scheduled for last tuesday right but it we found out that you can't have a meeting

when the select board are meeting. Right. So, which I didn't know and nobody else seemed to know. So we're scheduling it on the Thursday, the 22nd. So next week, next Thursday. And is that a Zoom? Will that be a Zoom meeting or? No, that's going to be an in-person meeting and that is going to be at Town Hall Annex in that meeting space. Okay, great. Thank you. and it starts at 6 30. So um okay good well we'll we'll you know one of probably Ken or I will be

there we we can't you know because Bob's on our committee we can't only have one other person there we all the three of us can't be there and I don't think Laura would be there I doubt she would come so yeah all right yeah take a look at that we'll probably share a couple things that we have time for here tonight but uh one of one of which is we sort of just penciled out a typical lot and uh figured out what what would actually work with setbacks and so forth okay tiny housing how that all would come together and just figuring out what the land area is that we're going to require right um the thing i'm most interested in is the cluster developments and what we might require of them in terms of affordable so that's the model you're you're leaning toward

well we have to allow single tiny a single tiny house on a single lot um but they do allow us to

have i think you know we're we were i was sort of thinking about three to eight units but but there seems to be no limit on what the cluster development could allow potentially. Um, but there's probably going to be some regulation on how many square feet per unit they get. Um, so it's all workable on, or off the soft septic system and those kinds of things. And do I hear you saying that you're learning, you're leaning toward, uh, not rental, but purchase ownership? Uh, well, I was thinking that would be an interesting idea that might sell the movable tiny houses. Because if they're on rented land, they're basically a trailer park, which I think is

not going to go over big in town, probably. No. I don't think so. Because it's not even a permitted use in town. It's not on the list of permitted uses. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Keep us posted. We'll pay attention to when you guys are meeting so that we can keep up. Yep. All right. Thanks, Bob. And thanks, Betsy. Yeah. I appreciate your input and your expertise, too. Yep. We'll see you tomorrow, Betsy. We're all going to be experts by the end of this. Right. This is a...it's interesting. You're constructing a flying airplane, you know.

Yeah, exactly. It's happening and we just have to figure out what it's going to look like. Yes, exactly. After it takes off. Exactly. Well, thank you. It won't be an Amazon Prime plane. Yeah. Thanks for your work and chasing this down and trying to get EUHLC to come to some

guidelines, I guess. And they always call them guidelines and not exactly rules. So, that means they can change them. Okay, thanks, Bob. Ken, you have some financial information for us? I do. I sent out the financials for the end of August. So, actually, Diane sent them out earlier this week that showed total expenditures to date of a little over $105,000 and funding

to date of a little over $907,000, which left us with about $802,000.

There was a mystery amount of funding that the accounting office told us of $40,837.

dollars and just a couple of days ago they let me know that that was the unrealized gains on the

investments that we have so that's these investments are doing quite well yes they are

also quite a surprise two surprises the community preservation committee funding to us of $238,000 is in our account already. And usually that doesn't happen

until after either very late in the year or early in the year. So that then gives us a

net assets of $1,039,993.

So the CPC money was one of the surprises, but another one, which was quite a surprise, was that we had a donation, we received a donation of $8,664. dollars. And that was the result of the discontinuing the Rockport Housing Partnership, Inc.,

which was a fund which was set up a long time ago, probably 15 years ago or more. And that was

And the people that were left in that housing trust, left in that housing partnership decided to give it to us.

So that was a wonderful, wonderful gift to receive. So that's not included in the amount I just mentioned. So when we receive that, we will have $1,048,000.

So that's excellent. Excellent. Very good. And it's still on Ken's radar that when we do our annual meeting that we will talk about in a minute,

that we will start to talk about our second year financial plan, which is what CPC is asking from us, is a financial plan. So that will be happening. And was there any resolution to the BSC invoices, or is that closed? It closed. I think that's going to be very difficult to get anything to

happened there, Diane. So there was a, we received a number of invoices in February through May for additional work

that BSC said they did on the NRAD.

And this billing occurred, it's somewhere between five and $10,000, depending on which invoices you count. But it appeared significantly after they had given us the final report. So I don't know what's happening there. Rob has not been particularly forthcoming. Help me try to go after BSC for that. All right. Thank you. I can talk to Mitch or talk to Rob offline about if there's any reason for us to continue

to pursue logical explanations. So, thank you. I appreciate it, Ken. And it's pretty exciting that we went over the million-dollar mark. I think. Yes, it is. I think that's really very exciting. It's a great reserve. going to serve us as we move forward. The next item on the agenda is the water rates for multifamily housing and the trust is certainly taking a position that the small number of units that are

are SHI eligible that they cannot raise their rents. So Harbor Light in this case has to eat this enormous amount of increase. For instance, they have one water meter for 30 units at Pigeon Cove ledges. So they're gonna go over that 10,000 K gallons and into the huge tier. They're gonna go over that tier very quickly. with that number of units. So it's very discouraging for any kind of an affordable housing builder to have to deal with that.

So we're continuing to pursue it. The next thing probably will be we'll be meeting hopefully with the commissioners, the trust, and Harbor Light.

Again, this doesn't take into consideration the housing authority because the housing authority water and so their utilities are paid by the state. So will they get pushback from the state?

I don't know. The only utility, the Kitefield Road, they have to pay their own electricity. Other than that, it's all paid by the state. So this directly affects the three affordable

unit properties that happen to be run by Harbor Light that makes, you know, them having to dip

into their reserves in order to pay for water and sewer. So we're pursuing that. Stay tuned on that one.

Did you have anything that you wanted to add on that, Ken? Actually, I did. Just to show how ridiculous this is having 30 units on the same meter,

to get to 10,000 gallons, that's 300 gallons per unit. And we get a water bill every quarter,

which is approximately 90 days. So each unit could use no more than 300 gallons for 90 days, or about three or four gallons a day to fall within that first tier. So it's just absurd. So that's just not a fair thing to be doing, and it certainly doesn't encourage Arbor Light, for example, to work in our town. So we're, speaking for myself, I'm very upset

about that. I'm sure Diane is too. And there are a lot, there are naturally occurring affordable housing here that it would, you know, that there are rents and that they're going to see this this, a giant increase as well, but they can raise their rents. The issue is for these is they can't

raise their rents. They eat it. They have to eat it or figure it out in some way. And, you know, it would affect services, I would guess. How else would they get this enormous amount of money that's not, you know. So anyway, so we're working on that. That's a good one for us to be

to be working on. Moving on to revision of strategy. We have talked to Rob and Craig at

the town and to identify other town properties that would fit into our very general parameters of, you know, three and a half to acres, probably minimum. Is there utilities there? Is there a road

there is you know those kinds of things and so they've identified a couple of town properties

that you know we would chase down for looking for deed restrictions looking for those kinds of things that would eliminate those town properties and there's not there's not many how would it how How many did we identify? Ken, I think four, three? Four. Four so far. Yeah. So, go ahead. Yeah, and each one is not perfect. They're all in the range of four to five or six acres. Some of them have wetlands on them. Some are closer to the railroad. road. It's not an easy thing to really find these lots that will fit into the requirements

that we have to have. But we're chasing it down. Yes, we are. Yeah, and if we have any, hopefully by the time we have our annual meeting on December 5th, we might have ones that may look promising that we can talk about. But at this point, We have really nothing to say about it. So our annual meeting, which is December 5th, we will be invited, certainly the public is invited. We have a draft, kind of how we're going to do this. I sent everybody the strategic plan again because it's important to take a look at that as to how we're going to pursue this

using our strategic plan. So we would review our, well first of all we would have coffee and donuts. I mean that's the most important because we will be meeting at 10 30 in the morning on Saturday morning. This is a regular meeting, it will be posted, but we would review our activities for

year one which is on page 21 of our strategic plan and that would be a handout for the also for the

public that comes. We would be, before we have that meeting, the trust will decide on our goals

for year two. And in the strategic plan, we have three areas of goals that we set goals on. One

project, pipeline, capacity, and communications and outreach. So we will be addressing general goals in those and then during the bulk of that meeting would be planning our activities for year two to meet those goals and the public is we want them to be there and to be there

listening to what we're doing we would have a financial report for year one and a budget a creation of a budget for year two of this plan and then we would have a time for public comment We would have some of the stuff would be on slides and some of it would be on handouts. There's not going to be a registration for this, but we hope that we get a nice group of public to see what we're doing and how we're proceeding.

Looking forward to it. I hope we have a good attendance. Yeah. Yeah. I think we have a good plan. It cannot be, we wanted to do it hybrid, can't be. But that's what we were hoping to do that. So it has to be in person. So, item number 10 is, are there any member items, anything that I didn't talk about or missed? No. No. Not necessarily. P.S. Bob, I was going to tell you that I talked to Mitch today and we are looking at

doing a revival of the ad hoc committee. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. So I know that that was part of your, what you wanted to, so that's in the works. Yeah. Okay. Good. Yeah. And one thing we chatted about during the week was if we did have this artist certified housing,

which was trying to look into if we did that for tiny house clusters or any other zoning effort,

we're trying to get to get through who would manage that process and again Somerville in Boston both have arts councils well actually Boston is the mayor's office arts council but the summer of the one is a nonprofit organization for Somerville Arts Council I think it's called that manages all of the applications and selections for their housing units for artists. I think they have two or three

projects currently accepting artists into their units.

So I saw that you wrote to the Rockport Art Association, so they're going to be involved on some level with this as well then well yeah and they're actually going to be talking about that on the 21st at their board meeting to see if they're if they've got the level of interest to be able to manage it oh the art the art association it has it on their agenda yeah they have that on their

governing board meeting on the 21st, I think so. Okay. Which I offered to give a

presentation, but I think it's kind of a closed meeting. Okay. Oh, okay.

Anyway, yeah, I told them I think, you know, for something like that effort, if if the applications are received by the town and just date stamped and whatnot, even if we get like 100 applications for the first eight units, like they did over at Granite Street, I think they got 500 applications over there for those 23 units. I don't think we necessarily, they could review those applications in the order they were received just review the first eight applicants that meet their criteria so it might not be a heavy lift

right they're late they're labor strapped over there anyway yeah all the committees are labor strapped

for sure ken did you have anything that you wanted to add no i'm glad to see you have the community engagement on this that's really important to us and I think the reviving the ad hoc community will make make should make a big difference. Right.

Frank you want to open it up for public comment? Anybody has any public any any comment? Let me see if I see anybody out there. Any hands? No hands. No hands? Okay, I don't see any hands. No. Okay, so I would entertain a motion for adjournment.