How hard is it to find a place to live in Peterborough right now? Well, even the town’s affordable housing committee is searching for a home.
Peterborough’s Master Plan Steering Committee met Monday night, in part to further a discussion started in early August, when Sharon Monahan asked the Select Board to consider reinstating the formal Affordable Housing Committee that was established in 1989, but went dormant after just a couple years. Monahan is one of three members of an ad-hoc affordable housing committee under the Economic Development Authority, and said she wanted to formalize that committee’s status. Although the Select Board agreed that affordable housing efforts needed a formal home in town government, they decided an affordable housing committee should operate under the purview of the Master Plan Steering Committee. The Master Plan Steering Committee is poised to take on the community outreach work initially intended for the Community Task Force on Affordable Housing, which disbanded in March, as previously reported.
However, Master Plan Steering Committee members asked attendee Tyler Ward, Select Board Chair, to reconsider at Monday night’s meeting.
Master Plan Steering Committee member Sarah Steinberg Heller said that although she supported the Select Board’s decision at first, she’d since become convinced that the existing ad-hoc EDA subcommittee should remain under the EDA, and encouraged other committee members to support the group’s efforts to formalize its status and increase its membership. “The EDA is the home for this committee,” she said. She also emphasized the importance of the committee having a clear mission, and keeping public records of the committee’s activities, which is required of formal town committees.
Fellow committee member James Kelly agreed. Kelly is chair of the EDA and a member of its ad-hoc affordable housing subcommittee along with Monahan and chair Pelagia Vincent. He described their efforts over the past couple of years to coordinate efforts between builders, businesses, and housing access nonprofits “to actually make it happen,” he said.
Town Planner Danica Melone said that working under the Master Plan “limits the scope of the work the group’s already doing.” That’s the view of the ad-hoc EDA subcommittee as well, which saw the collaboration as “a temporary thing,” Kelly said.
Formalizing the existing committee makes sense due to the heavy overlap it has with other town activities, including planning and zoning board approvals, Kelly said.
Although Ward questioned the need for a formal committee when informal partnerships and petition articles could achieve certain goals, he agreed to put the issue back on the Select Board agenda for Aug. 27.
The ad-hoc EDA committee has been operating as an official committee for many years, committee chair Pelagia Vincent said. Its mission statement is to “create a mix of affordable rental units by targeting non-functional buildings for rehabilitation,” its vision is to “enable local employers to attract entry-level employees by ensuring that Peterborough has enough affordable housing for people with low to moderate incomes,” and its goal is to “collaborate with various partners to acquire/manage the renovation of at least one in-town building per year resulting in a diverse affordable community,” according to a document dating back to the subcommittee’s start within the EDA.
From the beginning, their purpose was “to invigorate the economy and assist the businesses as well as the community members that wanted to live, work, and enjoy live in Peterborough rather than having to leave,” Vincent said. The community’s needs in that regard have only grown since they formed, she said. Recent meeting minutes indicate members are keeping track of several empty buildings and stalled housing projects around town, and discussing when to revisit the proposed Evans Flats housing project the Select Board tabled in January.
The EDA is “exactly where we should be,” to fulfill their goals, Vincent said, rather than under a different group. The committee has contributed to master planning documents in years past, Vincent said, and “of course” they can contribute to the Master Plan Steering Committee’s housing chapters this time around, too.
The situation is dire, Monday night’s meeting attendees agreed, as they shared anecdotes from local employers struggling to house recruits. Millipore Sigma, for instance, offers a starting rate of $19.50 an hour for entry-level employees, committee member Lisa Stone said. That’s good enough to entice workers from Lowell and Worcester, “but once they start doing that commute and don’t find housing within a month or two, they just hang it up,” she said.