AMHERST — A housing production plan being submitted to the state by Amherst officials will not specifically call for the University of Massachusetts to provide more on-campus housing, despite an effort from several councilors to include that language.
After narrowly rejecting, by a 7-6 vote, amendments to the plan drafted by the Barrett Consulting Group LLC of Hingham, the Town Council Monday approved, in a 10-3 vote, the 215-page document previously endorsed by the Planning Board.
At-Large Councilor Andy Steinberg said having a town housing production plan that asks UMass to build more housing doesn’t make sense, especially with limitations on the university’s bonding authority. He also notes that UMass officials have repeatedly said they have done their part to provide enough places for people to live on campus.
“I’m very much of the opinion that this is the town’s housing plan, not the university’s housing plan, and I don’t see there’s anything to be gained by putting that language in,” Steinberg said.
But District 4 Councilor Pam Rooney, who had postponed adopting the plan the previous week and who represents neighborhoods where there has been an influx of student rentals, said it makes sense to add the phrase “including the UMass campus” to existing statements in the report, such as to “encourage the development of student housing” and “encourage the development of more student housing and workforce housing.”
Rooney said this would be a gentle way to tweak the document.
“We could actually consider encouraging the university to do something on the UMass campus,” Rooney said. “I think that’s just a very positive statement and needs to be said publicly.”
Rooney received support for the amendments from fellow District 4 Councilor Jennifer Taub, as well as At Large Councilor Ellisha Walker, District 5 Councilor Bob Hegner, District 3 Councilor Heather Hala Lord and District 1 Councilor Cathy Schoen.
Steinberg was joined in opposing the amendments by At-Large Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke, District 5 Councilor Ana Devlin Gauthier, District 3 Councilor George Ryan, District 2 Councilors Lynn Griesemer and Pat De Angelis and District 1 Councilor Ndifreke Ette.
The plan offers a recommendation of getting 700 to 900 new housing units constructed by 2030 and a series of strategies to accomplish that. It will be submitted to the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities so Amherst can be eligible for various grants.
The plan sets forth a path for developing affordable housing that meets the state’s Chapter 40B law, with at least 10% of the town’s housing stock for low- and moderate-income families to achieve safe harbor designation from the state. That allows the town to guide development, rather than having affordable housing thrust on the community.
Ryan said wordsmithing a consultant’s report that aims to address the housing crisis in the town wasn’t appropriate.
“This report was done by a group of consultants, we paid them a fairly substantial amount of money (and) I assume they have a pretty good idea of what they’re doing,” Ryan said.
De Angelis also made a case for leaving the report as written. “Because a few councilors don’t like aspects of this report, you’re trying to amend it, to change the tone to feel comfortable to you,” she said. “Because these are all gentle, modest tweaks, we should go forward? We should not. We should vote the plan as is and this amendment needs to be defeated.”
Taub, though, said it “seems very defeatist” to not push UMass for more on-campus housing. She, Rooney and Schoen were the lone councilors to vote against the final report.
Another concern from Rooney was comment bubbles spread throughout the report, which she said were add-ons, superfluous and don’t represent the data well, and sets a biased tone for the document. These comment bubbles excerpted statistics and then made statements like “25% of college students want to stay and age in Amherst.”
Taub said there’s a “random quality” to the bubbles that serve no purpose. Schoen agreed, saying they are put in the report to make it look more picturesque and to imply that the housing crisis is driving people from Amherst, when other issues are actually causing the problem, such as lack of high-paying jobs for graduates.
Hanneke said the comment bubbles are fine and are consistent with the statistics.
“What’s the problem with the comment bubbles when they accurately represent the public engagement survey results of 3,300 and some respondents?” Hanneke said.