Haverhill city councilors are looking for input from residents and businesses before giving their blessings to a draft five-year Housing Production Plan.
After nearly an hour of discussion, councilors voted Tuesday, May 6, to send the draft, prepared by the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, to its Planning and Development Committee. Haverhill Community Development Division Director Andrew K. Herlihy, explained that while a Housing Production Plan is not required, it greatly improves the city’s chances of winning state and federal grants and makes Haverhill more attractive to developers.
“This is going to be an aspirational document. It’s a guide. I have continued to use the 2018 housing production plan to drive some of our community development and housing efforts. But it is a plan. We never use the old plan to follow every last word or very last thing. We’re not committing ourselves to any particular exact efforts,” he told councilors.
Councilor John A. Michitson suggested the report be sent to the Planning and Development Committee he chairs as a means of gathering public feedback.
“Some of the groups that I’d like to see invited are developers to try to see if we can find some that want to help us and also as Mr. President has suggested, we ought to have state representatives here a well to help identify funding opportunities that exist because there is a lot of money in the billions being put into the state for this kind of activity. Third, the thing I think we need the most really if start thinking about marketing, what we really need we need to talk to citizens who have housing needs.”
Both the City Council and the city’s Planning Board must ratify the plan before it is sent to the state’s Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities for certification.
Nate Robertson, a member of the city’s Planning Board and an organizer of the Haverhill Homes 4 All coalition, spoke in favor of adopting the plan.
“This isn’t news to anybody. We know that nobody can afford housing. Rents continue to go up. Home prices continue to soar. The thing that brought so many of us to Haverhill, which is affordability, we are watching that disappear and we don’t accept that as a foregone conclusion.”
Mayor Melinda E. Barrett weighed in, arguing that while the city can help, developers hold the cards so a Housing Production Plan would not immediately solve the city’s housing issues.
“We have to be realistic in the fact that we can help. We can look for funds and for people to partner with. I talk to the Y all the time. They have plans to build affordable housing. We will partner with them in any way we can or whoever else is out that we can partner with. But, that’s the affordable side. On the other side is all these other buildings which are market rate for the most part. And they came because they came. Because there was an opportunity with the land and they saw a value in developing,” she said.
Michitson said he hopes to call a meeting of the Planning and Development Committee later this month to discuss the housing plan.
As WHAV reported first last month, the 56-page plan, prepared with city input, outlines the current status of housing in Haverhill. It noted that since 2000, rents in Haverhill have increased 86% and home prices are up 101%. The report recommends Haverhill create a “starter home” zoning overlay district to make it easier for developers to build smaller homes for first-time homebuyers. It also recommends activating an Affordable Housing Trust, which is already included in the city’s ordinances. Another suggestion is developing and supporting initiatives other communities use that allow seniors to age in place. For example, if more one-bedroom apartments were available, seniors could downsize but stay in the city, leaving larger homes available to families.
The city’s last Housing Production Plan expired in 2023.
In other business the Council confirmed Alexandra Ponder, 25 Perspective Drive, to a three-year post on the Commission on Disability Issues and reappointed Roy P. Wright, 59 Woodland Park, to a three-year term on the Board of Assessors.
The Council agreed to allow Essex County Greenbelt to use an easement the city owns at 915 North Broadway to provide pedestrian access to a 33-acre landlocked parcel on Parsonage Hill.
A request by Adam T. Jankowski to waive the age requirement so he can take the civil service exam for the Haverhill Police Department was tabled because Jankowski was not in attendance.