Town Eyes Broader Funding For Housing

ORLEANS – While one article planned for October’s special town meeting calls for an appropriation of more than $500,000 to the town’s affordable housing trust fund, another article could seek to create a separate revenue stream for broader housing initiatives.

But can one funding source exist without impacting the other? The question was debated amongst members of the select board Aug. 28.

The $512,000 sought for the trust fund is poised to come back to voters for approval on Oct. 28 after voters in May declined to authorize the appropriation at the spring town meeting. 

The trust fund is allowed to finance projects for people who make up to 100 percent of the area median income in Barnstable County. Started in 2018, it is funded annually through an override of Proposition 2½. Last year, voters approved extending the fund’s annual appropriation from $275,000 to $500,000.

But as the regional housing crisis continues to deepen, the need for housing extends to those who don’t qualify for affordable dwellings. Town Manager Kim Newman said an article to fund “Orleans housing initiatives,” if passed, would create space in the town’s operating budget annually to fund future housing projects without the income restrictions that come with affordable housing projects.

While Newman voiced support for funding the affordable housing trust in the fall, she said there shouldn't be an “expectation that this is the only way in which we will address affordable housing moving forward.”

“The town has supported affordable housing and will continue to,” she said. “This is about housing in general, and without some kind of funding source for it, we can’t be creative. We are locked with these caps.”

Select board member Michael Herman, who is also a member of the town’s affordable housing trust fund board, raised concerns about how the creation of that broader funding mechanism would impact the town’s focus on funding affordable housing in town. While the need for housing of all kinds exists in Orleans, that still includes affordable housing, he said.

Earlier in the day on Aug. 28, the select board attended an event outside the Governor Prence Inn, where state officials including Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll gathered to celebrate last month’s passage of the $5.16 billion Affordable Homes Act (see story on page 5). 

The landmark legislation includes more than 50 provisions geared toward spurring the creation and renovation of housing across the state. That includes a seasonal communities designation that allows Orleans and other qualifying towns to establish a housing trust to help fund middle income housing. 

“If we remember what [was discussed] today, it was the Affordable Homes Act,” Herman told the board later that evening. “It wasn’t the whatever we want to call it, the Attainable Homes Act. This was the Affordable Homes Act, and to follow on those seasonal designations and those initiatives, we’re going to need to be focused still on affordable housing.”

Newman said making room in the budget for other housing needs doesn’t eliminate money for affordable housing, but creates “a more flexible boundary” to finance other types of housing. 

 “I don’t see it that way,” Herman said. “I see when you do create that flexible boundary, money’s not going to wind up in affordable housing.”

The town petitioned the state legislature to allow the trust fund to support housing projects for up to 200 percent of AMI, and voters in May opted against authorizing the $512,000 appropriation until the state weighed in on the request. Assistant Town Manager Mark Reil said the petition is in a “third read” at the Statehouse, but that it has not yet been voted on.

Select Board Chair Mark Mathison voiced his opposition to the article to bring back the $512,000 for a vote. He said the spring town meeting article was voted down because voters didn’t want to finance the fund with the existing AMI cap. But Herman disagreed.

“They were waiting to find out what the state legislature was going to do,” Herman said.

Mefford Runyon of the select board, meanwhile, said he was reluctant to create another funding stream dedicated to housing above what already exists through the trust fund.

“I don’t have an appetite for more than that, and if we’re thinking about putting this money into the trust and then finding an additional allotment to fund another trust, that to me would be a non-starter.”

But with the various means of funding and creating housing locally offered through the Affordable Homes Act, select board member Kevin Galligan said he was “leaning in support of creating space in the budget for more housing money.”

“There are going to be so many more options, and by doing it as ‘housing initiatives,’ it preserves every option,” he said.

Andrea Reed of the select board said the two articles represent immediate and longer term responses to the housing issue. She supported putting an article for the $512,000 before voters in October, and then coming back to voters in the spring session with an article to fund those broader housing initiatives.

“I think that’s what we bring to spring town meeting,” she said. “We haven’t done that work yet.”

The board did not take action last week on whether or not to place either article on the October town meeting warrant.