Planners hope to resurrect housing planner position
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
The revival of the town's housing planner position is in the works, as the Nantucket Planning & Economic Development Commission voted unanimously on Monday night to pursue Community Preservation Committee funding for the job.

The housing planner, last on staff from 1989 through 1992, would be a ringleader of sorts, orchestrating all of the affordable housing efforts on the island.

"They would coordinate all of the different groups that are involved in housing," Planning Director Andrew Vorce said. "They would finalize a strategic housing plan and make sure the plan is being implemented."

Vorce said the position is necessary because it does not seem there is enough follow-through on the island's part to provide affordable housing for the residents who need it. He likened the housing planner position to that of the land use planner's duties.

"The person's job is to implement things and get things completed," Vorce. "If we didn't have staff that focused on things like bike paths, they wouldn't get done."

Vorce listed the Nantucket Housing Authority (NHA), the Nantucket Housing Office (NHO), Habitat for Humanity, Tryworks, town housing and the Nantucket Aids Network as groups all working on individual affordable housing efforts that need the kind of focused direction a housing planner could provide.

"There's all that, there's land resources that have been set aside for housing, including 2 Fairgrounds Road and Nantucket Housing Authority property, there's Miller's Lane, so there's all kinds of projects out there that basically need someone to oversee them," he said.

Sarah Hathaway, who held the housing planner job for four years in the late '80s and early 1990s drew her salary from state funding. During her tenure, Hathaway created a housing action plan and wrote and successfully pushed through bylaw amendments in Town Meeting articles for inclusionary housing provisions and accessory housing units, said Vorce. Her position ended when the state stopped funding it.

Some of the commissioners were a little reticent to comment about reinstituting the position until they knew what the timeframe would be for funding the position through the Community Preservation Committee, the application deadline for which is Sept. 14. Others expressed concern about how this person would work with the two primary housing advocates on the island - the Nantucket Housing Authority and the Nantucket Housing Office - but Vorce said that both could benefit from a plan that would combine the missions of all island housing entities and keep them unified on the task of creating housing.

The Nantucket Housing Authority, funded by the state and federal governments, owns and manages the affordable housing complex off Miacomet Road. It has another nine acres where it wants to build 50 more units. It gets land from the town, and puts out bids for the construction of affordable houses only.

The Nantucket Housing Office, a nonprofit group founded in 1994, creates affordable housing solutions with house moves; facilitates the housing needs covenant program; manages 23 rental units; provides affordable housing education and stump for the Nantucket Housing Bank legislation. It is funded by the Community Preservation Committee and private donations.

For the most part, the Planning Commission agreed with Vorce near the end of the discussion, although Planning Commissioner Linda Williams, a member of the Nantucket Housing Authority board who is concerned that a housing planner might step on the toes of other housing groups by competing for land and houses, abstained from Monday's vote.

"I want to make sure that whatever this person is as a facilitator, that they can assist the Nantucket Housing Authority and Nantucket Housing Office and not supplant them and prevent them from getting land," said Williams.

Speaking as a commissioner and for the Board of Selectmen, Michael Kopko said he liked the idea.

"We've had some discussions at the Board of Selectmen level, so I think there's some good support for this position downtown; it's a great way to actually get something going," he said.

With the NP&EDC's approval on Monday night, the planning staff will now work on the Community Preservation Committee application. Before it submits the finished application to the CPC, however, the Planning Commission will hold a special meeting to review and approve the application. If a housing planner is hired, that person will likely work out of the town's 2

Fairgrounds Road annex. I