[MCM00001493_SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so this is our CDBG public meeting, hosted by the Office of Planning, Development and Sustainability. I'm Ashley Williams, I manage the CDBG program. And we also have Alicia Hunt, who's the director of the office. So the purpose of this meeting, usually we have one of these meetings in the spring, but we're starting to have one at this time of year as well. We're going to discuss some of the program's accomplishments that we've had, as well as the current use of the funding. And then, you know, we're still looking for that input for future programs or activities. Just for anybody on here that isn't familiar with the CDBG program, this program has been going on since 1974. It's a program of HUD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The primary benefit of this is to benefit low and moderate income persons. So Medford receives this grant from HUD and for those low moderate income persons, they have to be residents of Medford. It's a flexible annual grant and uses include public facilities, parks, public service agencies, which are usually nonprofits, housing and economic development. Any activities or projects need to show that they benefit at least 51% of low to moderate income persons. And that low to moderate income person is 80% or less of the area median income. So I know this map is a little tough to see on the screen. It is on our webpage on the city's website where you can kind of blow it up, but these kind of orange shaded areas are the low income block groups per the census. And if we look over on the chart, any of these shaded boxes fall into the low to moderate income definition for HUD for this current year. So if you're a single household, two family, three family, and so on, you have to be under this low 80%. Just our timeline. So the actual program year or the fiscal year starts July 1st of every year and ends on June 30th. So usually around January or February, we open the request for proposals for the public service applications. So it would be January or February of 2023 would be the next round. And that would be for services beginning July 1st of 2023. In April, we'll be working on our draft annual action plan, which will be available for comment. In May, we have a public hearing with the city council. Our office will request the city council to authorize the mayor to submit that one-year action plan to HUD. The actual plan is due on May 15. And then, so the program year will end on June 30th, and then on September 30th is when we have what we call the CAPER due. So that's what we're working on now, and it's the Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report. So just an easy way of saying we're listing all of our accomplishments and our performance for the year and evaluating what we did with the funding. So these are some of our accomplishments we've done this last program year. public facility improvements. These are usually our larger scale projects. They included roadway, sidewalk, utility improvements at Prescott, Alston, and Cottage Streets. There were various ADA improvements at Tufts Pool. It included some upgrades in the bathrooms for handicap access, as well as some new stairs going into the pool. We've started design work at Morrison Logan parks, and there was a few upgrades at the Medford fire stations engines three and five. These included new kitchens upgrades to LED lighting, a new roof. affordable housing. So there's a draft housing production plan complete. It identifies obstacles and opportunities to develop affordable housing in Medford. And then there's recommendations to overcome these obstacles. And that draft plan is currently pending approval by the Council and State Department of Housing and Community Development. Um, our housing staff also worked on creating more affordable units through private partnership with developers. This would be considered a leverage activity because it wouldn't really be any CDBG funds in it. And we've also increased funding and awareness for the home programs down payment assistant loans. There's actually a couple loans that were paid by the home consortium, which we are a member of for affordable home ownership units in Medford this year. And we've also, we get this question a lot, but a home rehab program, we are working on looking into nonprofits to assist with creating and overseeing this program. There just currently isn't the staffing to manage something like that, but we realize it is a need and we're looking for a way to have that program open again. public services. So this funding, we get 15% of our annual grant is allocated to public services. There's legal aid, elderly services, afterschool care, counseling, social, recreational, just a few of these on the screen. There's funds going to the Council on Aging, Communitas, Housing Families. This upcoming year, well, this current year now, we funded some programs at ABCD. economic development. So the city is creating new small business support programs, such as business counseling and facade improvement grant program. So currently, these are not being funded with CDBG. That was an original possibility. But there had been some other funding available that was decided to be utilized. But in the future, it will be considered to start funding some of these programs with CDBG funds as well. So these are some of our upcoming projects. There's going to be some street and sidewalk improvements at Pinker Street, ADA compliance upgrades at some of the parks throughout the city. Recently there was a community garden being built of a praise village. possibly some more beds at that garden as well in the upcoming year. Morrison Park specifically, upgrades to the top lot, fencing and dugouts, and Logan Park, looking into a natural play area and a new pathway around, and then some new curbing and edges at Brooks Park. So this meeting is just to elicit any input, you know, comments, suggestions, questions, what are the needs for low to moderate income residents in Medford? Where should we be focusing our CDBG resources? And what do you think any of the priorities should be out of parks, public facilities, infrastructure, housing, economic development and public services? And I will say for anybody that joined late, this is being recorded. I will also leave my contact information, number and email if there's any comments and suggestions that want to come in after the meeting.
[Alicia Hunt]: So if you're ready to take questions, Ashley, I'll point out to people that if anybody does have any comments or questions or suggestions, you can email Ashley, her information is on the screen, awilliams.medford-ma.gov, or you can raise your hand right now and we can unmute you and you are welcome to ask, or you're welcome to put questions in the chat as well, and we'll record that as well. But you don't have to do it now. You're welcome to just send us an email later if that's what you prefer. And this is also on television. If there are people watching through Medford Cable Access, you're welcome to call our office number, 781-393-2480. And we actually, there is somebody staffing that number now because we are during Medford Hall business hours. So we can take that question, those questions live as well.
[Unidentified]: Actually, I feel like I should ask you questions because there's nobody else to.
[Alicia Hunt]: if there's anything else we want to expand on, we're always interested. I think a useful thing for people to know is that we've been funding in the last two years trees, so removal of stumps and then planting of trees, as both that's sort of seen as CDBG as climate and improving the neighborhood. Those are allowed uses. And that change actually came from people coming to one of our public meetings in 2020 and asking about whether we could use our funding for trees. And Medford had never done it before. And we looked into it and we absolutely could. So we started doing that. And it was purely a question that came up. We hadn't actually even thought about whether this money could be used for that. So we're always open to ideas that are new. So if there are no questions or suggestions or comments for us live this evening, We can wrap up, and this will be replayed on Medford Community Media for people to see in the future and to send questions in. Technically, we have a public comment period for the next few weeks, but we'll take suggestions all year.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: Oh, hi. Hi. My name is Barbara, and I have a question. Is it an affordable housing development starting to be built at 551 Winter Street, Medford? Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Okay. I was just wondering when, because my brother and I are on a Section 8 program and we're looking for a, we've been in Method all our life and we're looking for another place to move to in the next few years. We live at Mister Place. And we also want to relocate to near West Method and Winthrop Street's the closest to West Method. I just have been trying to ask people questions about this and I can't get any answers. So you're the best try.
[MCM00001493_SPEAKER_06]: What's the question.
[Alicia Hunt]: So, so actually I think I have. So that is the project where they were doing the blasting. It's our understanding that that is going to be single family homes. And we don't believe that there is actually going to be any affordable housing at that location. But I so two things and we also have one of our staff who specializes in housing is on the call. So, Danielle, feel free to jump in or interrupt me if I'm wrong. First, though, we do have an email list so when there are affordable housing. opportunities available, we make sure that we message them out through the city. And the best way is that if you could be on our email list, we can add you to that. And you can get a message whenever there's an affordable housing opportunity. Usually, those are done by lottery. And actually, I'll say always. They're always done by lottery. And so you should get on that list and find out about them. I am fairly confident what we've heard is that the 55 by 51 Winthrop is going to be 10 single family homes and is not going to have any affordable units in it. They're not required for the size of that development.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: My brother had read, not to interrupt you, but my brother had read on postings about that and it was going to be affordable housing.
[Alicia Hunt]: So why, right. If there is one, then it will be done through lottery, and the lottery would be, we don't run those out of our office but we make sure that they're widely noticed and advertised. And the best way is by we always put them out on our email list. So we're happy to chat us your email address, or you can just send it to send a note to Ashley, and she'll make sure that you get added to the list. So you get notified of affordable housing units that come available on our radar right now there's if you're familiar with BJ's, there's some buildings over there, they've been doing some lotteries. and I'm not sure if anything else is coming up soon or if anything's open right now. I don't know if any of the other staff on the call actually could deal with that day-to-day.
[MCM00001493_SPEAKER_06]: The ones near BJ's are home ownership.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: We don't want that area.
[Alicia Hunt]: Okay.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: We want like West Method area, Winthrop Street area near the high school because we're originally from West Method. That's why We've been down this area for like 60 years, and my mother grew up in West Medford, so we want to go back to that area.
[Danielle Evans]: And you're looking for rentals? Yes. Okay. If you give us your contact information, preferably email, we can let you know if we hear of anything or any opportunities arise. I can have my
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: I can have my brother do that because he's better at that than me. So how would he?
[Alicia Hunt]: give you our email. If you want to write down either the email address on the screen or the phone. Okay. Right. You have something to write, we can tell you the phone number if you prefer. And you can call with the email address. And then our staff who answers the phone can add you to our email list. Okay. Do you want me to read? Do you want me to read it out to you? It's, phone number is 781-393-2480.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: Okay, that's what's on here.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yep, or he can email to A.Williams, A-W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S, at medford-ma.gov. Okay. And we can put you on the mailing list and notify you of opportunities that come up. Okay.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: Okay. And I don't know if the other person to mention this to too, but has there been any discussions of putting a market basket in Medford?
[Alicia Hunt]: So we do economic development in that we sometimes will reach out to businesses and encourage them to come, but we don't really have that level of control to like make something happen. I know that there has been interest from another grocery store to come in down near BJ's and that we've been looking at a little bit. But we've never had any interest from Market Basket to locate a store here in Medford. I think they sort of feel like people will drive up to Woburn to access them.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: Not easily if they don't have a car.
[Alicia Hunt]: No, not at all.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: Okay.
[Alicia Hunt]: Yeah. Okay. All right. Yep, but we do, we reach out to businesses and we do try to encourage them to come, particularly when there's a good fit location and space, but that market basket hasn't expressed any interest in putting a building here. Okay.
[9GYt_u4s5fY_SPEAKER_06]: All right, thank you.
[Alicia Hunt]: You're welcome. Are there any other questions? We're happy to take some more questions. So if there are no more questions, and I don't think we're getting anything on the phone back at the front desk, then I think we can wrap up. Yeah, I just heard from the front desk, there haven't been any phone calls.
[MCM00001493_SPEAKER_06]: Well, thank you for those who did attend. And again, my contact information is on the screen. If there are any comments, suggestions, further questions on this, we'll have another meeting in the springtime. And yeah, thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.