Pittsfield Affordable Housing Trust Looks to Resources

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Established last year with an initial $500,000, the Affordable Housing Trust soon expects to see additional resources to aid its mission.  

"There are a few pieces that are coming into play," Director of Community Development June Dodds said to the panel on Wednesday.

Pittsfield received a technical assistance grant for three years through MassHousing's Neighborhood Hub program for the effort and will kick off a public input process next month. The trust is seeking $150,000 in Community Preservation Act funds this year with an aim to determine priority housing needs by July and award project funding in the fiscal year 2024.

Trust members have agreed that the panel must leverage funds to address the city's housing crisis.  In its five months of work, the panel has consulted multiple Berkshire County housing entities to pave a path forward.

"I'm thinking of trying to marshal all of our resources together to make affordable housing happening without us extending ourselves and risking our principal, so to speak, our corpus of our funds, on any project," Michael McCarthy said.

Teton Management owner George Whaling detailed his experience with housing development and the challenges of inflationary supply chain costs.

"I think the whole concept of affordable housing has changed immensely over the last 20 years, 25 years," he said. "It's absolutely incredibly difficult to, first of all, buy an asset at a price point that makes sense and then to renovate that particular asset, again at a price that makes sense."

With inflation playing into the equation, Whaling said developers will get a bad rap because they have to charge between $1,500 to $2,500 a month to make a reasonable return and pay debt service.

The company owns Allendale Pines, which added 10 new homes in the last couple of years and has received permitting to expand the park into AP South and a new AP North with over 20 new homes.

While the existing trailer park's lot rent is around $330 per month, Whaling explained that AP North will need to be at a substantially higher price point just to cover costs.

"We just coincidentally received some of those numbers and the construction numbers are just off the hook. I'm not sure where we're going to go with that," he said.

The mixture of renting lot space and owning the home also comes into play.

"It's a conundrum, right? It certainly meets some of the criteria for affordable housing, but then there are these other things that make it a challenge for traditional mechanisms to come into play," she said.

"But it's certainly something we could explore, even just making it more attractive in some way."

Pittsfield ZBA Member Recognized for 40 Years of Service

By Brittany PolitoiBerkshires Staff
12:23PM / Thursday, April 25, 2024

Albert Ingegni III tells the council about how his father-in-law, former Mayor Remo Del Gallo who died at age 94 in 2020, enjoyed his many years serving the city and told Ingegni to do the same. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — It's not every day that a citizen is recognized for decades of service to a local board — except for Tuesday.

Albert Ingegni III was applauded for four decades of service on the Zoning Board of Appeals during City Council. Mayor Peter Marchetti presented him with a certificate of thanks for his commitment to the community.

"It's not every day that you get to stand before the City Council in honor of a Pittsfield citizen who has dedicated 40 years of his life serving on a board or commission," he said.

"As we say that, I know that there are many people that want to serve on boards and commissions and this office will take any resume that there is and evaluate each person but tonight, we're here to honor Albert Ingegni."

The honoree is currently chair of the ZBA, which handles applicants who are appealing a decision or asking for a variance.

Ingegni said he was thinking on the ride over about his late father-in-law, former Mayor Remo Del Gallo, who told him to "enjoy every moment of it because it goes really quickly."

"He was right," he said. "Thank you all."

The council accepted $18,000 from the state Department of Conservation and Recreation and a  $310,060 from the U.S. Department of Transportation's Safe Streets and Roads for All program.