At its first meeting Aug. 19 in the Select Board’s Meeting Room at Abbot Hall, the newly formed Marblehead Housing Committee got right down to business, giving an update on the town’s plan to deal with the MBTA Communities Act following the rejection of the town’s compliance plan in last month’s referendum.
The committee, formed through the merger of the Fair Housing Committee and the Housing Production Plan Implementation Committee, consists of 10 members: Alex Eitler, Deacon John Whipple, Cathy Hoog, Mimi Hollister, Kurt James, Debra Larkin, Nisha Austin, Bob Nuess, Ramon Garcia and Brendan Callahan. Callahan, the town’s director of community development and planning, was elected chair by the members of the committee, and Larkin took the role of interim secretary.
The meeting was called primarily to discuss the Select Board’s letter to the governor requesting an exemption from the zoning law, G.L.c. 40A, §3A.
“It is our understanding that that letter is still circulating, and we are anticipating a response,” said Callahan.
Currently, the town’s lack of compliance with 3A has resulted in ineligibility for discretionary state grants. One of these grants, a $50,000 award given out under the guise of the Massachusetts 250 program, which was to be used for Marblehead’s “Sails and Stories” project, has already been rescinded.
“Identifying all of the different grants that [Marblehead] would be ineligible for is a moving target right now,” Callahan said during the committee’s discussion of potential noncompliance penalties. “We don’t have a confirmed list of everything.”
Due to the potential for a significant loss in state funding for important town projects, members of the committee and attendees asked Eitler, Marblehead’s town planner, whether a new compliance plan could be drafted in time to meet an end-of-year deadline to avoid an enforcement action by the attorney general.
“The window is closing very quickly for that,” said Eitler. “I think the ability to put something together is entirely dependent on: One, do we use the same plan, and two, if we choose not to use that plan and propose an alternate plan, do we have the data to back that up?”
As the town waits for a decision as to whether the governor’s office will grant an exemption, the Select Board and Community Development & Planning Department are preparing for the request to be denied.
“The Community Development Department is prepared to seek assistance [from the state] if we are to evaluate other potential districts outside of the three that are currently on the table,” Callahan said. “We are waiting for the response from the state on the exemption and then from the Select Board as to how they want to proceed.”
Following the update on the town’s 3A noncompliance, the conversation shifted to the future of the Coffin School site.
“There’s definitely an interest in the private sector about what the town is doing with the property,” Callahan said. “I think you’re going to start seeing more discussion going on surrounding the Coffin School. It’s coming very much to the front burner.”
The Housing Committee will next meet on Sept. 9.
