LYNN — The city’s housing situation — which some at a debate hosted Wednesday night by the New Lynn Coalition called a crisis — was front and center among the topics discussed by both mayoral and councilor-at-large candidates.
Both Darren Cyr and Jared Nicholson, candidates for mayor in the Nov. 2 election, were present for the forum. All the at-large candidates, except for Buzzy Barton, were in attendance as well.
The City Council candidates went first in the two-hour forum, followed by Nicholson and Cyr.
Cyr did not support the recently-passed housing production plan, being one of two councilors in opposition. The plan has been approved by the City Council and Planning Board. He reiterated his problems with the plan Wednesday.
“We shouldn’t implement any of it,” he said. “We should go back to the drawing board.”
Cyr’s main issue with the plan has to do with inclusionary zoning, which mandates that certain percentages of units in developments be labeled as “affordable housing.” He said such laws would actually discourage new development in Lynn because they would be too costly to implement.
Nicholson, who was on the steering committee that helped develop the plan, defended his endorsement of inclusionary zoning.
“Yes, I do support it,” he said. “But there’s a lot that has to go into it. A lot of work that has to be done. We need to get into the weeds of the financial aspect of it.”
By that, he meant it was impossible to tie developers to a firm percentage of affordable units without doing a market analysis to see what figure will satisfy all the parties involved.
The at-large candidates were also asked the same question about the housing plan. Most agreed with it, and agreed with the concept that Lynn needs more affordable housing. However, incumbent Brian LaPierre sounded a cautionary note.
“When it comes to private development,” he said, “it isn’t until they come to the city looking for something that we can do something that might benefit the city. Otherwise, it’s private development.”
And, he said, most of the new housing being constructed in the city is being built by private developers.
Incumbent Brian Field brought up the number of vouchers given to people who can’t afford to live in places such as Boston, where rents are higher.
“That obviously affects prices here,” he said.
Another topic shared by both groups was the idea of an unarmed crisis-response team (UCRT) that would function independently of police, based on a program set up in Eugene, Ore. where these crisis-response teams would be summoned in 9-1-1 calls, with police as backup.
Again, Cyr and Nicholson were on opposite sides of the issue.
“At this point, no,” Cyr said. “I do believe in more advanced training for police officers. But it’s tough for me to really answer that question, as I don’t know enough about the program. I’m not saying it can’t work, or that I wouldn’t support it. But not now.”
Nicholson is for it, saying there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered about it, but that it could be a very valuable extension of the Lynn Police Department’s Behavioral Health Unit.
Cyr fielded a question about the condition of schools, saying that having as many century-old schools as there are in the city is unacceptable. Nicholson addressed one about his moving to Lynn to start a political career and using the mayor’s office as a stepping stone.
“It’s true, I wasn’t born here, but I chose to live here, and my son (Henry, who turned 2 Wednesday) was born here. I am running so that kids like Henry will have opportunities. I’ll be honored to be mayor here.”
The at-large candidates were mostly agreeable to the questions addressed to them. Incumbent Hong Net supported the UCRT, but that was not a knock, he said, on police.
“I think the police do a fine job,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of the police (for the amount of calls they get), and I think a UCRT would be a huge help.”
Candidate Nicole McClain is also for the UCRT, but with the caveat that “they should be of assistance to the police, not get in the way.”
Like Nicholson, Field gave a shout out to the police department’s Behavioral Health Unit.
“We’ve all seen the importance of it,” he said. “It’s no crime to have mental-health issues, and it’s no crime to be drug dependent. But I’d support such a unit.”
Another topic for the council candidates was accessibility and transparency. Marven Hyppolite wondered out loud why councilors didn’t have their own staff to help communicate with constituents.
“They absolutely should,” he said. “There’s no way one person in the council office can answer the amount of questions people have.”
Jose Encarnacion said that he walks through the city and “no one knows what is going on. Some of them don’t even know there’s an election.”
