The concept of affordable accessory apartments was appealing enough to voters at the 2007 Town Meeting to yield overwhelmingly approval for a program that would have encouraged the apartments in single-family homes throughout the town. The program, however, proved unworkable, and the affordable rental units envisioned by Town Meeting were never created.
This year’s Annual Town Meeting, scheduled for April 28, has an opportunity to vote on a plan that proponents say has worked for other communities, including Carlisle, whose program provided a model for Harvard.
The program provides local homeowners with grants of up to $15,000 for renting to low- or moderate-income tenants. The grants replace the tax incentives called for in the 2007 plan, which were rendered unusable when the home rule petition enabling the tax breaks was shelved by the state Senate in 2008. The simple grants proposed now would be funded by Community Preservation Act money and administered by Harvard’s Municipal Affordable Housing Trust.
Barbara Brady, a member of the trust, heads the group’s ongoing effort to establish a viable affordable accessory program in Harvard. Brady told the Press last week that it provides a low-impact alternative to high density, 40B developments.
“The trust has developed a program that provides an incentive for small-scale affordable development, the ‘small and scattered’ kind that Harvard says it wants,” she said.
Citing the example of older residents with extra space in their houses and a need for extra income, Brady emphasized the local benefits.
“The money, both the rent and the [incentive] grant, goes to a Harvard resident. The tenant could well be a local person,” she said. “And the town’s Subsidized Housing Inventory is credited with the affordable unit.”
The inventory is the state’s official tally of homes that count toward the mandated goal that 10 percent of a town’s homes be affordable by state-defined standards. Harvard’s total currently stands at 5.4 percent.
The proposal for affordable accessory apartments is defined by a new zoning bylaw—to be presented at Annual Town Meeting—and by policies created with the help of the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the state agency that regulates affordable housing. The process for both tenant and homeowner will be spelled out in a step-by-step document to be prepared by the Municipal Affordable Housing Trust. The document could be ready as early as this summer, Brady said.
The process for a homeowner would likely involve several steps, including getting a special permit from the Zoning Board of Appeals; selecting an income-qualified tenant from a list to be provided by a qualified project administrator; signing a 15-year deed restriction that legally requires the apartment to be rented at a state-defined rate; selecting a tenant according to the state’s fair housing policy; applying for the incentive grant; and agreeing to yearly inspections.
Homeowners who want out of the program before the 15-year period can break the covenant, but would need to repay the grant. Sale of the property automatically breaks the deed restriction, according to the most recent draft of the bylaw.
Steps for prospective tenants would probably include applying to a project administrator (Carlisle uses the Chelmsford Housing Authority) for income qualification and a housing lottery number; signing a lease; and agreeing to yearly income-eligibility checks. To qualify, tenants would have to earn no more than 80 percent of the county’s median income; however, over time, income can climb as high as the 140 percent mark.
Under the program, tenants cannot be family members of the homeowner, a restriction imposed by the affirmative fair market housing rules used by the state to prevent discrimination in renting. But Harvard’s standard accessory apartment bylaw, first enacted in 1982 and significantly updated in 2006, contains no such restrictions.
The towns of Carlisle, Wellfleet, and Yarmouth have recently created affordable accessory apartment programs, as has the city of Newton. The programs have so far yielded only a few affordable units, according to research by the town of Carlisle.
Public hearings to discuss the affordable accessory apartment bylaw and its associated policies will be held by the Planning Board on Monday, Feb. 27 at 8 p.m. in the old library.
