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Date: 12/12/2023
SOUTH HADLEY — The Planning Board has unanimously voted to adopt a new Housing Production Plan that was proposed as the town faces a shortage of housing stock available and affordable to low- and moderate- income households.
In their Dec. 5 joint meeting, both the Planning Board and Selectboard heard from residents once again on the proposal, after they last did so with a draft of the plan in September at a Planning Board meeting. The Selectboard will vote to adopt the Housing Production Plan for the town at its next meeting.
After the plan is approved and submitted by both boards it will be submitted to the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing Livable Communities for their approval, as is the process set out by the state.
The HPP provides analysis and discussion on South Hadley’s population, housing stock and housing affordability using current demographic market data. The existing conditions, as well as public comment from multiple community forums and a survey, have informed the community’s goals for housing and strategies that can be implemented to achieve these goals over time. Municipalities maintain HPPs to comply with a state law known as Chapter 40B and to address the goal of 10% deed-restricted affordable housing.
Hitting the 10% threshold of affordability would put South Hadley into a safe harbor with the state law. According to the summary of the HPP, the town is just under 7,400 year-round housing units, and 424 of those are on the subsidized housing inventory, which count toward the 10% threshold. This plan is an update from the last time the town reviewed and adopted an HPP in 2016.
“Adoption of the plan, in addition to meeting certain affordable housing targets, enables the town to achieve what’s called safe harbor from unwanted comprehensive development permits under Chapter 40B,” Director of Planning and Conservation Anne Capra explained before taking questions from the public. “It is intended that the Housing Production Plan will guide housing policy and development in South Hadley over the next five years.”
The process to update the HPP began about a year and a half ago according to Capra, and a nine-member advisory committee worked with consultants from an affordable housing design architectural firm. This committee worked with the Planning Department to get public engagement on this process and integrated in the plan.
“This Housing Production Plan is good for five years and then it expires. If in five years from now we haven’t met that 10%, we will update our plan and the clock keeps ticking,” Capra explained.
Selectboard member Jeff Cyr asked about potential sites listed in the plan’s executive summary that include the South Hadley Falls, but that many of the properties identified exist in a floodplain space already on the town’s radar from past projects. He asked how would costs for being in the floodplain be affected and what current costs look like to build housing.
Capra said from her understanding there hasn’t been development in the falls on those parcels because there hasn’t been site control and there are also property owners who have not allowed the property to be purchased for redevelopment, or it is simply not for sale.
“I don’t think it’s necessarily a floodplain issue. If we were able to acquire some of the parcels that are identified as opportunity properties in the falls, I think the town should take a really hard look at whether or not we have the ability to acquire them,” Capra said.
Capra explained a few years ago the Redevelopment Authority received a state downtown initiative grant to look at the falls area in question to see if mixed use development could be put there under the current zoning. Within the floodpain constraints, it was identified there would be ways to redevelop and bring in a property through raising of the elevation to allow for compensatory flood storage.
“Whether or not a site like that could get the type of federal and state funding to subsidize affordable housing in a flood zone is a whole other question,” Capra said.
She also added concerns about market construction rates were valid as the numbers the board has been hearing are $300-$400 square foot for construction. Capra said many developers have reiterated to her in this process that the costs of construction is breaking the bank.
“The subsidies that are available are really just not enough to cover the cost and it’s just so competitive because the need in Massachusetts for affordable units is so great that to compete for these tax credits, its phenomenal. Between that competition and the market rate of construction, it’s a dim outlook unfortunately,” Capra added.
Cyr also asked about how additional parking in the Village Commons would be accommodated for with how busy and full it typically already is if that was another potential area for affordable housing to be targeted through this plan.
Capra said Mount Holyoke College has been interested in redeveloping the parking lot for a long time and have floated concepts to planning over the years. Capra said a project in this area would require a parking garage to be built if there were to be affordable housing units built.
“That’s not to say the college is moving in that direction or doing anything like that — and just to be clear, all the opportunity sites that were identified in the plan, there has been a little misperception that these are in fact housing proposals that are on the table. They are not. In many cases the properties were locations where property owners expressed an interest in some sort of redevelopment in their property and so they have participated in the plan as just a visioning exercise. These are not projects that are permitted or on the books or going forward,” Capra explained.
When opened to public comment, one resident said he understood the problem for affordable housing and was in favor of addressing it, but he felt the town was not giving enough representation to the public in the decision-making process and would have liked to have seen it brought before Town Meeting.
Capra explained that the last 18 months the town and Planning Board have worked toward outreach to get the community’s input involved in this process. She added an advisory committee was established to help with this process and to get more opinions in the room, as well as follow the process listed from the state in submitting an HPP.
She added in any future project with affordable housing there will still be planning processes to not only identify which areas in town would benefit, but to also involve residents in those areas and get their feedback on how a project would impact them.
“Most strategies in the plan itself will require public process to implemented but I hope the plan inspires private developers to come to town and build projects. We need housing now. Only 426 homes in South Hadley are deed restricted affordable and that’s compared to just over 2,600 households that are income eligible for affordable housing,” Capra said. “There are a lot of people in our community that are in need of affordable housing and people that just simply cant afford to stay in the homes they’re in.”
She added that she respects the desire for this type of plan’s approval to go through Town Meeting but that was not the state’s process.
Resident Anne Stockton agreed with some of the resident’s comments and added that the makeup of the Advisory Committee was to her, not correct.
“We had two Planning Board members, two people from the Housing Authority. I use the word stacked, and I will continue to think that,” said Stockton. “I think we really need to communicate to the community about this Housing Production Plan going forward because I do think we need affordable housing, I think there are means to get there, but I think we need to have community input.”
Resident Diane LaRoche, who serves on the Redevelopment Authority, worked on the Advisory Committee and explained one of the many things they were tasked with was connecting with the community on this process. She added she went out and spoke about potential ideas to the South Hadley Falls Neighborhood Association during this process. LaRoche also asked the Selectboard to vote to adopt this plan at their next meeting.
The Planning Board voted unanimously to adopt the HPP and now the Selectboard will have the same vote at its next meeting. To review this meeting and discussion you can watch online through South Hadley Community Television at https://shctv15.com.
In closing, Town Administrator Lisa Wong explained even after Selectboard approval, there was still a lot of work yet to be done to address affordable housing in town, and residents can reach out with questions or concerns.
“Essentially this strategy lays out a very big and broad ecosystem, as well as some very specific opportunities based on researched best practices and things very specific to South Hadley, but I would say we have a lot of hard work ahead,” Wong said.