LYNN — The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) was scheduled to present the city’s proposed housing production plan, “Housing Lynn: A Plan for Inclusive Growth,” to the City Council and answer questions during Tuesday night’s meeting, but audio issues led to an inability for the Council Chambers to incorporate a virtual presentation.
It was another setback for advocates of the affordable housing plan, which was completed in March but has yet to be presented to the City Council, which has to approve the document.
MAPC Executive Director Marc Draisen said he and Karina Oliver-Milchman, chief of housing and neighborhood development at the MAPC and the consultant enlisted to create Housing Lynn, were very excited to present the plan to the council members and answer their questions, but were disappointed when they learned their virtual participation could not be accommodated.
The MAPC has implemented COVID-19 protocols restricting staff from attending any meetings where masks are not required, since the Delta variant has been rapidly spreading and another surge is ongoing.
Draisen said he sent a letter to City Council President and mayoral candidate Darren Cyr on Friday informing him they could not attend the meeting in person, and offered to participate remotely by having someone come and set up the presentation in the Council Chambers at City Hall.
Although Draisen said this has been done multiple times for them in other public meetings across the state, Cyr said the amount of information and questions that would coincide with this presentation would have been very difficult to hear if done remotely.
The Council Chambers has incorporated Zoom and phone calls into meetings before, but Cyr said that it had not been very successful for past City Council meetings because it was difficult to hear and the reception was spotty; in addition, Cyr said, with a group presentation such as the one MAPC had planned for Tuesday, it would have been extremely difficult to understand everything being said and to ask and answer questions.
Cyr said the council has not been given the opportunity to be involved in the process of the developing the housing production plan; while they were invited to some public meetings, Cyr said that by that point everyone had already formed their own opinions and made decisions.
The point of the MAPC coming to the meeting was to sit down with councilors to inform them, explain the drafting process and plan on how to implement Housing Lynn.
“What I’m trying to do as council president is simply try to get all of the councilors educated on this whole entire production plan. That’s it,” Cyr said. “Regardless of what my opinion is of it, in order for the council to make a fair and intelligent decision, they need to be educated on it.”
The MAPC was scheduled to join the meeting in July, so Cyr said the organization had plenty of time to let the council know its representatives couldn’t attend in person, rather than waiting five days before the meeting to tell them.
Cyr said if he had more of a heads up, he could have had someone come in and set up a Zoom meeting format, which could have accommodated what the MAPC needed; it would have been costly, he said, but it would have allowed for the virtual presentation to take place.
“You wouldn’t have been able to hear most of what was being said with all of the cut-outs,” Cyr said.
Draisen said the MAPC is happy to reschedule and work with the City Council to figure out a way to meet and virtually present the slideshow created for the housing plan presentation, but he will not require his staff to attend a public meeting that doesn’t have the same COVID-19 protocols as the MAPC office.
Cyr said the MAPC is more than welcome to come in person with masks on and stand six feet apart, but if that is still not an option, he is not sure what they can do.
“Every one of us comes in contact with lots of people on a daily basis,” Cyr said. “I’ve been vaccinated and I wear a mask when I’m supposed to wear it, so that to me was just an excuse not to come.”
In regards to the City Council vote on the Housing Lynn plan, Cyr said that people have been demanding and want the plan approved without knowing what the consequences are for everyone in the city, which is why he invited the MAPC to join the council on Tuesday night.
“I’m a firm believer in, ‘OK let’s take a look at it to see what the benefits are and what the benefits aren’t, who benefits from it, is there a cost associated with it?'” Cyr said.
In the meantime, Draisen encouraged any councilors, or members of the public, to send questions or concerns about the housing production plan to him or Oliver-Milchman at [email protected] or [email protected]. Draisen said they are always open for questions and willing to discuss the plan and answer any questions they can.
