SOUTH DEERFIELD — Aside from a recently proposed 72-dwelling senior condominium development on Sugarloaf Street at the base of Mount Sugarloaf, which Developer Mark Wightman said could be subsidized, the town is at a stand-still when it comes to new affordable and senior housing developments.
Most recently and in response to criticism about the potentially high price tag of the condos, Wightman suggested that Deerfield use some of its million dollars in Community Preservation Act money to subsidize as many as 15 — about 20 percent — of the condos at about $70,000 each — requiring a recommendation from the Community Preservation Committee and a majority public vote at a town meeting.
Samantha Kaufman, spokeswoman for the state office of Housing and Economic Development, said “no units from Deerfield have been added to the state’s Subsidized Housing Inventory since 2014,” when the state and the town came up with a detailed Housing Production Plan, effective through March 2019, that includes suggestions about how to create more affordable housing.
Because the town doesn’t have much subsidized housing, Franklin Regional Housing Authority Executive Director Francis Pheeny said the town is below the state required 10 percent affordable housing quota, which doesn’t hold any negative repercussions, but opens up the possibility of a developer invoking state Chapter 40B. That law, created in the late 1960s, allows a developer to bypass some town’s zoning laws in order to build a large-scale affordable housing project.
Currently, Massachusetts Housing Partnership spokesman Rus Lodi said only “1.5 percent of Deerfield’s units are affordable.” Elsewhere in southern Franklin County, Whately has 0.3 percent and Conway has no affordable housing at all. In Sunderland, a large-scale developer is using Chapter 40B to expedite a large-scale development there.
The plan also included a caveat agreement between the town and the state to create 11 new affordable housing units per year, as a temporary way to satisfy Chapter 40B.
As far as what the town’s currently doing to address its housing need, Selectboard Chairwoman Carolyn Shores Ness said “The Selectboard is actively pursuing subsidized senior housing” using CPA funds, which must “be approved by the CPA committee, and the town needs to approve it too. It can’t just be spent.”
Kaufman said that the town hasn’t officially implemented any of the suggestions in the plan.
For housing to be labeled “affordable” and meet state standards, MJ Adams, community development administrator for the Town of Greenfield, said “families should not pay more than 30 percent of their monthly gross income toward housing.” The state requires newly constructed affordable housing to have a deed restriction guaranteeing affordability for at least 30 years.
Addressing concerns that his proposed development wouldn’t meet state requirements, Wightman said, “There are specific documents that need to be filled out to make sure the amount of CPA money (given to a condo) buyer gets passed along to the next buyer of the unit. I want to make sure the units remain affordable. And yes, one of those documents is a 30-year deed restriction.”
According to the Housing Production Plan, affordable housing can be subsidized through tax credits; grants or loans, and CPA funds.
Spending CPA funds requires a recommendation by the town Community Preservation Committee and a public vote at a town meeting. Since the town voted to implement a CPA fund in 2007 — half paid by taxpayers, the other half by the state — no money has been spent on affordable housing.
Currently, the CPA fund has about $1 million in it, with about $300,000 added each year.
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