The Housing and Development Committee of the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council (JPNC) held its regular monthly meeting via Zoom on Tuesday, February 17.
Chair Danielle Sommer Kieta and fellow members Purple Reign, Bernie Doherty, Aidan Foley, Sarah Freeman, Pam Bender, Willie Mitchell, Carla Lisa Caliga, Lorenzo Bartoloni, Sarah Horsley, and Kathy Brown were on hand for the session.
The 110-minute meeting consisted almost entirely of a presentation and Q&A session with Sheila Dillon, Chief of Housing for the City of Boston and the Director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing (MOH), about the current state of housing in the city and in JP in particular.
Andy Feldman, who is a Housing Policy Manager with the Policy Development and Research Division of the MOH, also was on hand to answer questions.
Sommer Kieta kicked-off the discussion by asking Dillon to present an overview of the recent changes in housing policy at the state and federal levels.
“In all my years of doing this, I’ve never seen a situation at the federal level be this dysfunctional and frustrating,” said Dillon, who offered some good news by noting that many of the existing federal programs appear as though they will be level-funded for the coming year.
However, she noted that the ARPA funds that had become available to the city during the COVID crisis and were still being used through last year have now been exhausted and will not be replaced.
Dillon spoke of the legal actions being taken by the city against the federal government relating to funding for the city’s permanent housing program for homeless persons and the federal government’s ban on the use of certain language in contracts.
Dillon also noted that the federal government is suing the city over the use of “fair housing” language used by the city in its promotional materials.
“It is a very frustrating time,” said Dillon. “We are spending a lot of our time fighting the federal government about things that we always have done and that we do well.”
By contrast, Dillon said the city has a strong working relationship with the state government and has done well with its funding rounds, though Dillon noted that some affordable home ownership initiatives have been stalled because of a lack of funding, which is true across the state.
“However, rental projects are moving ahead at a very predictable and steady pace,” Dillon said. “For the first four years during Mayor Wu’s first term, we had a record number of affordable housing projects start and become completed, with 32 percent of these units being income-restricted.
“There was a very big focus and big effort in ensuring that we both continue to create new affordable housing and maintain the affordable housing that we have,” Dillon added, though she noted that affordable housing projects are expected to be fewer in the years ahead because of the cuts in federal funding.
In response to a question from Sommer Kieta about the JP/ROX zoning initiative that has been in existence for about 10 years and which allows for higher-density developments in exchange for a higher-percentage of affordable housing, Dillon said, “We’ve had some great successes with the JP/ROX program, but it is becoming challenging for developers to make their numbers work. We’ve had some projects across the city that have been stalled.
“We sometimes work with developers to see if there are some reasonable solutions to get the project going,” Dillon added. “It is important that we have supply in the city. It is important for construction jobs and it is important for the tax base in the city, and it also is important to increase vacancy rates.”
In response to a question from Horsley, Dillon said the city looks closely at the feasibility of projects if a developer is seeking changes to the affordability mix because of the new financial realities of higher interest rates and increased construction costs.
Doherty raised his concern that the “city is actively discouraging parking at new housing developments,” which exacerbates the parking problem in surrounding neighborhoods. “We need to make sure that we are not denigrating the quality of life for residents,” Doherty added.
In response to a question from Helen Mathews, Dillon spoke at length about the city’s efforts at finding nonprofits to purchase smaller buildings (such as a three-unit building) and to turn them into affordable housing, utilizing private debt and “shallow subsidies” from the city.
“It is only about half the cost to purchase-and-stabilize than to build new,” said Dillon, who added that the program has created about 800 affordable housing units throughout the city in the past few years.
“I appreciate the (Jamaica Plain) community’s commitment to making sure that Boston remains affordable for everyone and that people don’t get displaced. You’ve always fought the good fight,” Dillon said in conclusion.
Sommer Kieta reported to her fellow committee persons that some members of the community are working with the developers of 3326 Washington St. regarding the changes that the developers are proposing pertaining to the mix of affordable units.
The JPNC sent a letter to the city asking that the project not move forward before the BPDA until the affordable housing plan for the project is resolved.
The next meeting of the Housing and Development Committee is set for Tuesday evening, March 17.