HANSON – Town Planner Anthony DeFrias met with the Select Board at its meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 5 to discuss progress of the town’s housing production plan.
“This is not a hearing,” said Chair Laura FitzGerald-Kemmett. “It’s just a presentation. This has already been presented at the Planning Board [but] under Chapter 40B regulations, towns are required to have a housing production plan … and I think a lot of people are conflating it with the MBTA Communities program. This is a little bit different.
FitzGerald-Kemmett, Vice Chair Ann Rein and member Ed Heal all stressed they want to avoid any wording that might even suggest that the town is entertaining involvement of any kind in the MBTA Communities plan.
“Another article will be put on the October Town warrant that, ‘If you do not want MBTA Communities, we need to have money to fight, because we have no funds to fight it right now,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said.
Both she and Heal said they didn’t see how they can plan on putting a housing production plan on the same warrant and that they’re bullish about it.
“I’m going to say it right now – I don’t want Hanson to turn into Weymouth,” Rein said. “If I wanted to live in Weymouth, I would move to Weymouth. You want to poll the town again” We’ve already done it twice.”
FitzGerald-Kemmett asked that the exact language pertaining to the MBTA Communities Act is referred to in the housing production plan in order to examine it.”
The board, however, is not likely to budge on their position concerning MBTA Communities.
“I don’t know for sure, if you do not include anything on the MBTA in this housing production plan, how the state will take that,” said housing policy consultant Karen Sonneberg.
Member Joe Weeks said that, keeping in mind the changes since January when the Planning Board voted on it, and the work the town has done on the MBTA issue, the Select Board will have to take a second pass over the document to determine how the state might appreciate the wording.
Residents attending the meeting also expressed concern about the language referring to the state and whether they would comply with the state’s preferences. The meeting can be viewed on the Whitman-Hanson Community Access cable YouTube channel, or rebroadcast on the Hanson access channel.
The impact of more housing on infrastructure – both capital and human – schools and public safety demands was also discussed.
“We don’t have a social services network in town,” FitzGerald-Kemmett added. “You know who our social services network is? It’s our senior center director. That’s the only person.”
The MBTA plan will be on the October Town Meeting warrant, because the Attorney General’s office has basically demanded it.
Under 40B regulations, municipalities are encouraged to “proactively plan,” so we’re in the driver’s seat to design what Hanson wants to see happen in the town, FitzGerald-Kemmett summed up.
“That’s exactly what this plan does,” she said.
When Hanson applies for, and wins, state approval for its housing production plan that gives the town leverage over future developmental proposals – especially those developed under Chapter 40B.
Residents and officials also discussed what constitutes affordable housing and who needs it as well as the town’s potential for developing a housing production plan that gives them more control over design elements under other sections of Chapter 40.
“We need to have a broader community conversation about the reality of what is happening around us, about the pressures from the state and how we’re going to address them as a town, and what we want this town to look like,” FitzGerald-Kemmett said. “And we have to be reality based, because we’re not in a bubble. We can’t live in ‘Little House on the Prairie’ for the rest of our lives … but we can control more of what’s happening here and be in the driver’s seat.”
“We have one advantage – septic systems,” one resident said.
Hanson is now at the 5 percent level of affordable housing in town. Unless they are able to reach the 10 percent level, which the state requires, “We basically are going to get our lunch handed to us every time someone wants to come in and [build] a 40B” development, FitzGerald-Kemmett said, “unless we have a housing production plan and modestly increase affordable housing.”
Ultimately the establishment of a housing production plan will provide Hanson with “safe harbor” status, which allows them to deny 40B.
“Before I came here, Hanson had a housing production plan,” DeFrias said. “It has a shelf life and was expiring in 2024.”
That left it up to him to develop a new plan, for which he approached the CPC for funding to prepare. The CPC had funds to grant for that purpose.
Looking for a consultant, they found Sonneberg, who is in the process of preparing that plan now. It would eventually go before the state for approval, and has already been before the Planning Board, which has held public hearings, DeFrias said.
“They were good with the draft that Karen has prepared,’ he said. “It has to go before the Select Board, also, for their approval.”
She provided a brief PowerPoint presentation before answering Select Board members’ questions.
“I’m going to go through the highlights as expeditiously as I can,” she said. “We did do some outreach to the community to try to get folks here.”
The new plan updates the one begun in 2019, while also embracing the housing issues included in the town’s master plan.
“If you’re spending more than 30 percent of you income on housing, whether for ownership or rental, you’re considered to be [in need of] affordable housing,” Sonneberg quoted HUD guidelines.
To be considered affordable housing under 40B housing stock must meet goals for being subsidized, deed restricted or affirmatively marketed to households earning at or below 80 percent of the median income level. But 70 percent would reserved for people who live or work in the community.
“We’re talking about the greater Boston area and goes up even into New Hampshire and down into the coastal communities – a wide breadth of [our area],” she said. “We’re talking about working households, here.”
If town builds even one-half of 1 percent of the required housing units (right now 20 of them), it becomes certified and may qualify as a safe harbor so long as it has an approved plan in place – wherein the town can deny potential 40B applicants that do not meet a town’s particular terms and conditions.
The average weekly wage for Hanson residents is $1,027, which equals $53,400 a year, while 7.4 percent – or 300 households earned less than $25,000 per year and 56 percent earned more than $100,000.
“ A lot of people have jobs and cannot afford to live in the town,” she said.
The town is losing young residents and gaining older ones, with residents under 20 decreasing in number by 21 percent, while those over age 65 increased by 68 percent –and there has been a decline in the number of families.
A median single-family house in Hanson costs about $600,000, apartments go for about $3,000 for a two bed-room.
“When it comes down to housing strategies, we include a capacity building strategy,” she said.
Many towns establish affordable housing trusts through which they can conduct community outreach and education programs and to establish an afforble housing trust and an affordable trust and promote a regional Housing Trust Fund and use a regional collaboration through which professional housing services can be obtained. Planning has also taken into consideration of the town’s infrastructure limitations into consideration.
The next step is to update the draft program based on community comments they’ve received and submit the program to the state for approval once the Select Board votes on it.