Pittsfield Housing Trust Looks to Involvement with CPA ProcessBy Brittany Polito, iBerkshires Staff
07:09AM / Sunday, December 31, 2023 | |
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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Affordable Housing Trust will offer its expertise for Community Preservation Act applications related to housing.
The panel agreed at its December meeting that it would make recommendations or designate CPA funds for these types of projects. For fiscal 2024, there are three community housing applications including the trust's request for $150,000.
When the AHT was created, this was thought to be one of its functions.
"The [CPA] committee kind of struggled with what's the value of an affordable housing unit and how much money should CPA be awarding and just without having a really concrete background in sort of housing development and housing issues," Director of Community Development Justine Dodds explained.
"That's one of the reasons why we set up this board in addition to all the others."
In FY24, two large-scale housing projects are seeking more than $300,000 in CPA funds.
Allegrone Companies has applied for $350,000 in CPA funds to support a more than $17.9 million project to "transform the downtown city block between Summer Street and Columbus Avenue by way of adaptive reuse" of the historic building and new construction at the former Jim's House of Shoes.
The application is submitted under historic preservation and community housing, as 35 mixed-income residential units are included in the plan.
"It seems like an easy way for us to get involved," Trustee Matthew Lauro said. "Obviously we have a well-experienced developer, someone that has a history of completion on these types of projects. I don't know, it seems foolish for us not to be involved in some capacity given the resources that we have."
The Westside Legends is seeking $350,000 to support a $5.8 million affordable housing project on Columbus Avenue for first-time homebuyers. The request would cover $80,000 in soft costs and $270,00 in construction.
The organization comprises community leaders from the Westside of Pittsfield who are committed to uplifting the neighborhood adjacent to Pittsfield's downtown. After learning from Greylock Federal Credit Union that there had only been two mortgage applicants of color over the past five years, WSL developed a first-time homebuyer program that has facilitated more than 30 families of color closing on their first homes, with another 40 more prequalified.
"They're both very good projects, I think. Something we need desperately," trustee Floriana Fitzgerald said, adding that she would not want to use all of the trust's resources on this.
Chair Betsy Sherman was not at the meeting but had formerly stated that she agreed this falls under thier purview.
The involvement could look like CPA funds that are allocated for housing being turned over to the trust for distribution or the trust making funding recommendations to the Community Preservation Committee.
The AHT was established last year with $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funds and received $150,000 in CPA funds last year.
This year, the total CPA ask for open space and recreation, community housing, and historic preservation is about $1.7 million and the city has around $966,000 to disperse. At at least 10% of annual CPA revenues must be set aside in reserve accounts or spent in the categories.
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