LYNN — Lingering social distancing restrictions have shifted how the city is collecting public input during the development of its five-year housing production plan.
Lynn Housing Authority & Neighborhood Development, the city, and the planning consultant, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council, launched a virtual open house last week aimed at collecting feedback for “Housing Lynn: A plan for inclusive growth.”
The open house will expire on Monday, June 8 at 5 p.m., which organizers say should give residents sufficient time to participate in the survey.
“Moving forward with the work on this plan is especially challenging during this unprecedented time, but now, more than ever, do we, as a community, need to focus on those with vulnerable housing situations,” Mayor Thomas M. McGee said in a statement. “I encourage all residents to participate in this virtual open house and continue to provide their input in this important public process.”
The yearlong planning process for the future document, aimed at increasing the city’s affordable housing stock, kicked off last September and is scheduled to wrap up in October.
Jeff Weeden, LHAND’s planning and development manager, said the Lynn Housing Authority and MAPC are on track to meet that deadline, but acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic might alter those plans.
Public forums in the fall and winter drew large crowds, but since large gatherings are still banned, the city has turned this and potentially future sessions planned for the summer into online forums, Weeden said, explaining that the scope of the plan included four to five public forums.
The purpose of the open house, Weeden said, is to get input on the goals and challenges for housing production that were identified in past public forms, stakeholder meetings and focus groups.
Although affordable housing is the main focus of the plan, Weeden said there is also a need for workforce and market-rate housing. The plan will address non-housing issues that can affect housing, such as public health and school enrollment.
The plan will include strategies on how to balance new development with keeping the city’s current housing stock affordable, and address displacement that stems from a number of factors, Weeden said.
“The MAPC said in other communities, (the virtual open houses) were successful and there was a lot of feedback,” said Weeden. “I’m hoping people log on and see it. We’re still moving forward. We want to keep the momentum and we want to hear from everyone. Part of the scope is to reach out and hear from everyone and that’s what we’re aiming to do.”
Feedback from the open house, in addition to analysis of housing needs and development constraints and opportunities, will inform plan recommendations. After the survey expires, there will be a webinar for residents to hear from and ask questions of experts in market-rate and affordable housing development, according to an MAPC press release.
Later in the process, the public will be engaged on zoning for residential development and will be asked to provide input on a draft of the plan, according to the MAPC.
“The Lynn Housing Authority & Neighborhood Development, with this administration, has worked diligently over the last year to engage residents to address our housing needs, and we remain committed to this process and hearing from everyone,” LHAND Executive Director Charles Gaeta said in a statement. “These opportunities for community input are critical to shaping the right plan for the city.”
A housing production plan is typically undertaken by communities that have less than 10 percent of its units designated as affordable, which is used to develop strategies for housing production aimed at meeting that state requirement under Chapter 40B.
Since the city has met that threshold, with 12.5 percent of its units considered affordable by the state’s Subsidized Housing Inventory, the plan being developed, which has to be approved by the City Council, Planning Board and the state Department of Housing and Community Development, is not a requirement.
However, city officials recognized that housing and affordable housing needs in Lynn have not been met and that the city lacked a comprehensive plan to address those needs. The city’s last comprehensive housing market analysis, completed by LHAND in 2016, is outdated as it is based on data from 2015 numbers or collected from the 2010 census.
Although Lynn has remained a place of “relative affordability” in comparison to other communities — Lynn’s rents are comparable to Salem and Malden but well below Chelsea, Revere and Somerville — statistics show that more than 42 percent of Lynn households are living in a home they cannot afford, according to the MAPC.
More information about Housing Lynn and the online open house can be found at the plan’s website. To participate in the open house, residents can visit the online survey.
