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Date: 1/18/2022
SUNDERLAND – The new housing plan presented to the Selectboard last week featured good news, but Bruce Bennett drew attention to a chronic challenge facing towns built on a flood plain: septic systems.
“You have to have a minimum of four feet between the groundwater and the bottom of the leach field,” Bennett said. “Those standards are being followed very strictly in Sunderland now. We’ve prevented the sales of houses, from the Board of Health, because...the septic system was sized for three bedrooms, (then) the people added a couple more.”
Other residents called in to confirm that Title 5 septic systems often failed a pre-sale inspection, and a second perc test as well. Dana Roscoe, however, called in to laud the town’s performance in building affordable housing, an inflection point in Sunderland’s report.
“So the key difference between our previous housing production plan and this housing production plan,” Roscoe said, “is this one we actually achieve and exceed the 10 percent?”
Towns need 10 percent of local housing that qualifies as affordable to be protected from unwelcome developments under Chapter 40b, the state’s program to generate affordable housing. Chapter 40b developments bypass some local zoning and permitting requirements, which means the town has less control over growth. Achieving that 10 percent threshold is an accomplishment, for most towns, and is a cause for celebration.
“Ten point seven percent I think is what it is right now,” said Meghan Rhodes, a planner at Franklin Regional Council of Governments (FRCOG) who presented the housing plan. “So you have a little bit of wiggle room.”
Rhodes presented an overview of the 130-page plan that featured 25 recommendations for planning the future growth of housing. Four of those options, according to Rhodes, are priorities. Working with the Housing Redevelopment Authority (HRA) to help low- and middle-income homeowners bring their houses up to code; the creation of an affordable housing trust to ease the financing of low-income housing; and a focus on launching affordable housing projects in the center of town are three top recommendations. The key change Rhodes saw to improve the housing in Sunderland, however, was to collaborate with neighboring towns to create more subsidized and affordable housing.
“There are several towns around here that also have CPA (Community Preservation Act) funding,” Rhodes said. “Pooling those resources to hire a regional housing coordinator that can either staff, or research, an affordable housing trust...can help develop properties, such as the senior housing that’s going in on Sanderson Place. This is someone to devote more full-time resources to the issue of housing.”
A resident praised the town’s efforts to create affordable housing. Sunderland compares favorably with both Montague and Amherst in that respect, according to a caller identified as Leo. He commented that Deerfield, Whately and Leverett have very little affordable housing. Spreading the wealth, combining resources, may be a regional solution to affordable housing. According to Town Administrator Geoffrey Kravitz, sharing resources has already paid dividends in Sunderland. The southern areas of the town show the result of municipalities working together to protect agricultural land.
“In the south part of town, where it used to be tobacco fields,” said Kravitz, “the town worked hard, with the Town of Hadley too...and now that’s all protected. (Rte.) 47 and Plum Tree Lane, that’s all protected because the town worked at it.”
A total of 177 residents responded to a housing survey. Statistics on Sunderland housing, and the ability of residents to pay for it, offered sobering evidence of the need for affordable shelter. Seven percent of homeowners are burdened by housing costs, paying more than 30 percent of income to keep a roof overhead. Among renters, that percentage jumps to 73 percent who are burdened, or severely burdened by housing costs. A quarter of respondents said they will be moving in the next five years, chiefly because of the exorbitant costs of housing in Sunderland.
Kravitz praised the housing plan that details, with clarity that previous plans did not achieve, how UMass Amherst impacts housing costs. Rhodes offered hard evidence, pointing out that rentals are more expensive in Sunderland, the average rent being $1,400 per month, compared to $1,300 in Amherst.
“You talk about student housing?” Kravitz asked. “Student housing is not necessarily inexpensive.”
Selectboard member David Pierce commented on two points raised by the plan, housing for elders in transition, and homes for younger people looking to buy.
“There were two items (in the plan) which are very strong needs,” Pierce said, “affordable starter housing, and homes that are affordable and smaller, so that if you want to downsize and move into something like that” the option is available in town.
Kravitz commented the plan discusses tiny houses as an option to reduce barriers to first time homebuyers. Rhodes emphasized that an affordable housing trust would open the door for first-timers and downsizers to buy smaller homes, or those in need of rehabbing.
An affordable housing trust is “a body that could help with paying first time down payments for homeowners, or help subsidize that initial land cost,” Rhodes said. “What are the real housing options we need in town? There (also) needs to be more accessible housing units for people with disabilities ... There’s another range of issues, not just subsidized housing, this plan looks at.”
A bright spot in Sunderland housing, the addition of 34 units for seniors, will open up when the Sanderson Place project reaches completion next fall. Kravitz was understandably enthusiastic about the accomplishment.
“If you look around Franklin County, that’s immense,” Kravitz said. “We’re there, we’ve done that. We’ve been talking to other communities trying to model what we’ve done.”
Public comment on the plan was taken until Jan. 10. A version incorporating the changes recommended by residents will be available for a reading prior to Town Meeting.