Newton Planning Director Barney Heath sent a letter to the City Council Friday clarifying a confusing report about a state grant that incorrectly said the money would be used to specifically support the creation of 2,500 new housing on Washington Street.
Instead, Heath writes, the grant will be used to study the combined fiscal impacts of various development proposals across the city: Northland off Needham Street (960), Riverside (660), Craft Street (500) and West Newton (440).
He also said “a couple of news agencies subsequently but incorrectly reported that Newton was a “Housing Choice” community” and reminded councilors that none of these projects have “even made it yet in detailed proposal form.”
Here’s an excerpt. Read the full letter here.
We are deeply interested in determining the full fiscal impacts of proposed developments and the development of more robust financially modeling techniques that we can use in the coming months and years. Therefore, the Planning Department applied to a state agency, MassHousing, in March
2018 to request funding to hire a consultant to undertake this analysis and develop a model. More specifically, our grant request was to engage a financial consultant to develop a “Newton specific” fiscal impact model which could be applied to various development proposals across the City, which currently total about 2,500 housing units. This estimate was derived from the following anticipated development proposals: Northland off Needham Street (960), Riverside (660), Craft Street (500) and West Newton (440). None of these projects have even made it yet in detailed proposal form to the City but proponents have outlined them in public forums. The goal is to have the analytical-modeling tool funded by the grant be helpful as one component of the Washington Street Vision Plan – given the timely opportunity to engage the public on this important aspect of development.
The grant award from MassHousing is not conditional. MassHousing’s grant programs provide funding to a wide range of projects across the Commonwealth. Newton was fortunate to be among the 15 communities that were awarded this technical assistant grant.
