Housing Committee
Comprehensive Plan
March 25, 2003
10 members present: Jack Shipley, Paige Farmer, Lee Shipley, Al Roberge, Ellen Breed, Sue Roberge, Dick Dionne, John Sterling, Ray Guerin, Skip Clough
Last meeting is scheduled for April 29. Paige will be out of town
Focus on “explosion sheets”
Jack – Re-cap last meeting. Guests were informative but we did not get specific suggestions on what models to study for zoning changes that are pro-active for workforce housing. This will be an area that needs investigation beyond the time frame of this committee.
Correction to the notes of last meeting, the state does not mandate 10% of growth in the workforce/assisted category, just suggests that this be used as a guideline.
Al – Do we think of the shoe shop as affordable? At $1100.00/month rent hard to consider affordable. But is housing for some part of the workforce.
John – Cliff Ham has many appts. that must be considered affordable. He has had them for a long time. Some are $350.00/month.
Do these appt. show up when statistics are being made re: availability of workforce housing in this area?
Ray – We are well below most towns in York Cnty. for housing for the elderly.
Al – Not only is there the Norton St. housing for “affordable” but there are now the appts on RR Ave. They are about $1000.00/month. Grant house has 22 rooms.
($1000.00/month, if it follows the “rule of thumb” as a third of monthly income for housing, then that is $36,000.00/ year or about $17.30/hour for a 40 hour work week)
Jack – Congregate care would be a good thing to suggest we try and locate here. Dover is the closest.
Sue – Do we consider workforce as both renters and home owners? Yes
Discussion - can’t dictate what a homeowner will sell for. All we can do is suggest.
Paige – the ratio of income to housing costs is the issue here. Livable wage for housing in this area is very high. There are home ownership programs, perhaps this committee suggests that the town look into encouraging for instance, 5 homes available using these type of programs in the next 10 years.
Discussion – suggest that there be a resource book available at the town hall as a means to educating the prospective home owner about what is available for assistance. Realtors may or may not know what is available and may or may not advise prospective home owners about what is out there. There is an educational component to this issue. We can suggest that the town host an informative event for realtors to educate them about available home ownership help programs.
A goal is to have housing available for our municipal employees if they want to live in SB. Perhaps a booklet that outlines info. to help with home ownership be developed and given to municipal employees, new teachers when they begin employment.
There is an educational component to this issue that we can suggest be part of how the comprehensive looks at workforce housing and elderly housing.
Next we went to the “explosion sheet” for changes.
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