Saugus housing forum on tap

SAUGUS-The Affordable Housing Committee, in its search to draft an accessory dwelling bylaw may have found an answer the town has been looking for in how to legalize its illegal apartments.Committee Chairman Janet Leuci admitted that might be a by product of what the committee has put together but it was not necessarily the intent.The Affordable Housing Committee will explain the intent of its latest bylaw during a public forum to be held Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Town Hall Auditorium.”This is our third attempt with a bylaw,” Leuci said.The committee started on its journey when Town Meeting voted in 2006 to form a committee to investigate ways to increase the town’s affordable housing stock. Since then the group has brought two bylaws forward that established an Affordable Housing Trust and inclusionary zoning. Both were approved.The trust is designed to handle actual pieces of property while the zoning bylaw requires housing new developments with more than five units to make 10 percent of the units affordable.With grant money from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council in hand and help from Chief Housing Planner Jennifer Raitt, the final bylaw the committee tackled is aimed at enabling single-family homeowners to have, for lack of a better word, an in-law apartment.”It does address this whole issue of in-law apartments,” Leuci said adding that in this economy she can understand the need for them.The bylaw covers both “family accessory dwelling units,” apartments designed for family members and deed-restricted accessory-dwelling units. The latter Leuci said work toward satisfying an immediate need for more rental units in order to meet the state requirements for affordable housing. Every community is required to make 10 percent of its housing stock affordable.It is a voluntary program however. Leuci was quick to point out that they could not force people to comply.”But it’s certainly a good way to make (apartments) legal,” she added. “It’s also about public safety and bringing them up to code.”Leuci said Raitt would go over the entire proposal during Wednesday’s hearing.”We will do a PowerPoint presentation, give the background and allow questions and answers,” she said.Since it is a public forum Leuci said comments would be taken to heart, the document revised and it should be ready for the spring annual Town Meeting.”We just want people to know we’re still listening,” she said. “We’ve already received some good comments and I know some revision will be made to include them.”