WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Affordable Housing Trust last week received one response for its request for proposals to develop a couple of building lots.

 

But at its Wednesday meeting, the trust's board held off on committing to the respondent.

 

None of the trustees raised any serious concerns about discrepancies in the proposal from Northern Berkshire Habitat for Humanity, but they decided to take a cautious approach and gather more information before taking a vote to accept the nonprofit's bid.

 

In 2015, the housing trust purchased properties on Summer Street and Cole Avenue with the intention of finding a non-profit to develop owner-occupied housing that will be priced in an income-sensitive manner in perpetuity.

 

Earlier this year, the trust issued a formal request for proposals and, not surprisingly, Habitat for Humanity, which specializes in that type of housing project, was the lone respondent.

 

While the trustees found the proposal to be generally responsive to the specifications of the RFP, members of the board had questions about items like whether the town would have a say in design and how many homes would be built on each property.

 

"They do say single family on Cole Avenue," Trustee Stanley Parese said in a meeting telecast on the town's public access television station, WilliNet. "If we want to have them back to ask, 'Why not a duplex?' That's certainly something we can talk about. They talk about on Summer Street, the possibility of two [homes]. It wouldn't trouble me if they can get two houses up there."

 

The reason the board held off on voting to accept the proposal was that the RFP it drafted calls for a 30-day acceptance period in which the trustees and successful applicant will finalize a long-term lease or purchase and sale agreement.

 

"We may want to, as a way to get more specificity when we start that 30-day clock running, have them in to talk about some of the granular detail," Parese said. "A purchase and sales agreement can say a lot of things, including … typically they can have 'due diligence' periods embedded in them. If we voted on this tonight, it wouldn't be catastrophic, but [the RFP] anticipates an expedited pursuit."

 

Chairman Thomas Sheldon suggested that the board invite the president of Habitat for Humanity's board of directors to a special meeting of the trustees in early July to field the questions and pave the way for a final vote. Sheldon also suggested that the seven-member board form a three-person working group to iron out the details of a final legal agreement with Habitat.

 

Sheldon said, ideally, he wants to see Habitat for Humanity get started on a project at one of the sites during 2017.

 

"There's a whole process we'd have to go through before they put a space in the ground," he said. "My hope is there'd be a chance to start the work before the winter sets in."

 

Sheldon appointed another working group last Wednesday to look at potential modifications to the guidelines for the trust's DeMayo Mortgage Assistance Program.

 

An issue arose at the trustees' monthly meeting, when it was presented with two applications for grants under the program.

 

A dozen successful applications into the program, which began in 2015, the trustees Wednesday grappled with an application with a feature they had not seen before.

 

The difference came in answer to the application's question about whether homebuyer would be successful in obtaining a mortgage without a successful grant application.

 

Generally, applicants have checked, "no," but one of the applications before the board last week indicated that, in fact, the loan applicant would be able to purchase the home with or without the grant — generated, as all trust funds are, from the town's Community Preservation Act revenue.

 

Trustee Patrick Quinn expressed concern about awarding the grant under that circumstance.

 

Sheldon, who, along with Parese, has served on the board since its creation, said the "but for" question had been included on the form to gather information about grantees. It was not meant to be a bar to awarding the grants, which are designed for first-time homeowners and based on income eligibility.

 

Trustee Anne O'Connor, who occupies the Board of Selectmen's seat on the Affordable Housing Trust, told her colleagues that she had a conversation with the loan officer at the bank where the application originated, and the subject of the application came up.

 

"She told me in this situation that if they went through [closing] with their own funds, they'd be completely depleted," O'Connor said. "So if anything comes up — an appliance breaks or there's some medical issue — if they had an emergency issue, they'd be defaulting [on loans] and all that."

 

"We all know as homeowners that [emergencies] happen somewhat predictably," Sheldon said. "It's a matter of leaving them with a little something at the end."

 

Quinn suggested that the board considered awarding an amount less than the requested $15,000, but, in the end, it voted 6-1 in favor of the full grant with Quinn voting in the minority.

 

The other application before the board, also for the maximum of $15,000 available in the program, was approved unanimously.

 

Later in the meeting, Sheldon assigned Quinn, Ruth Harrison and Liz Costley to serve on a working group to study possible revisions to the grant program, including the specific concern raised by Quinn about eligibility.

 

The group also will look at the brochure that the the trust has placed at local lending institutions to see if it could be made more user friendly and encouraging to prospective applicants.