Council Subcommittee OKs Pittsfield Affordable Housing Trust
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The city is looking to adopt an affordable housing trust to create and preserve accessible housing in the community.
On Monday, the Ordinances and Rules subcommittee unanimously voted in favor of the trust. It will be sent to the full council next week.
"Basically it's a mechanism that communities can adopt as a way to help create affordable housing, and there's a whole host of ways it can do that," City Planner CJ Hoss explained.
"But the fund is overseen by a board of trustees, which would then be created by this ordinance if you adopt it, and this isn't something that's overly unique. There aren't many communities in the Berkshires that have it, but over 120 communities in Massachusetts have adopted an affordable housing trust fund. Locally, Williamstown, Great Barrington, and Lenox are the primary exemptions."
This proposal dates back to the re-zoning of Downtown Pittsfield as a creative district in April of last year. The new designation included an inclusionary zoning layer that required residential developers over a certain amount of units to provide affordable housing.
"This is a great ordinance," Ward 7 Councilor Anthony Maffuccio said. "And we are in dire need of affordable housing in this community, there's too much market-rate apartments going up and not enough affordable housing going up."
An affordable housing trust fund is one of the prescriptive ways that a developer can meet that goal, Hoss explained, as they can contribute to it if they aren't going to provide affordable units.
At the time of the Downtown Creative District's approval, the city had not created a trust but promised that it would be done in the next year.
The creative district zoning aims to support a vibrant, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly urban downtown, determine the best way for the city of Pittsfield through its land-use boards to control the appearance of future development in the downtown, and replace existing overlay and underlying districts with a form-based code.
It removed and replaced the downtown arts overlay district and the downtown business zoning district.
Hoss said most communities with an AHTF also have a Community Preservation Act (CPA) fund, which Pittsfield does have.
Other communities contribute to the trust with CPA funds, payments made by developers in lieu of creating affordable housing units, tax title sales, developer impact fees, and private donations.
The board of seven trustees that includes Mayor Linda Tyer, a member of the Community Development Board, a member of the Community Preservation Committee, and four at-large members with relevant experience.
Maffuccio wanted to make sure that only affordable housing units receive funding, not market rate. He speculated that developers have built "affordable housing" complexes that are mostly market rate with a handful of affordable units.
Director of Community Development Justine Dodds explained that affordable housing is strictly eligible and added that this gives the city a tool to incentivize that type of housing. She later confirmed that the funds could be used for low-income housing in a mixed-income building.
The committee voted on two motions for approval: to accept Massachusetts General Law, Chapter 44, Section 55C Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund and an ordinance amending the City Code, Chapter 2, Administration to add Article LIII, Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
If accepted by the council, Hoss said the next steps will be to appoint the trustees and go through a process similar to that of the CPA funds.
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