(Below is a copy of an email I sent this morning to the Plymouth Select Board Chair and members.)
Madam Chair and Select Board Members,
This proposed MGL 40B Comprehensive Permit For Affordable Housing Project, to be known as Darby Farms containing 392 Housing Units, is being discussed by your Select Board with the developer as a “Friendly 40B”, aka a “LIP” Local Initiative Program, 40B Comprehensive Permit Project.
As such, the Plymouth Select Board has the exclusive right and duty to now negotiate with the Developer specific improvements related to the Proposed Project benefiting the town before it is approved by the State’s EOHLC (Executive Office of Housing and Livable
Communities) after which it will go forward to full hearings before our Zoning Board of Appeals as do all 40B Affordable Housing Development projects. (The ZBA doesn’t enjoy the same right of negotiation with the developer.)
I suggest your Select Board negotiate with the developer that half of the required 25% AHU’s (98 Affordable Housing Units) be at 60% AMI (Area Median Income), with 49 Affordable Housing Units rather than all 98 AHU’s be at the higher 80% AMI which is normally required of 40B comprehensive permit housing projects.
Why? By so doing, it will provide greater opportunity for those Plymouth households earning less income, to afford the rent and reside in Plymouth. Perhaps a policeman, firefighter, teacher or one of many others in a supporting role in Plymouth, for which we’re all dependent, will be able to stay a resident of Plymouth.
In closing, I further suggest that the final AHU’s (Affordable Housing Units) count in this proposed 40B comprehensive permit be required to be held in perpetuity without any sunset provision thereby reverting the AHU’s to market rate at some time, decades in the future.
Respectfully submitted for your consideration and action.
– William Yeomans