Housing Forum This Thursday

This Thursday, June 21, the Planning Department and Lexington Housing Partnership are teaming up to host a housing forum for community members to come, learn and share their thoughts on all things housing. 

The forum will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at .

The following is a narrative provided by Aaron Henry, senior planner for the Town of Lexington:

In the fall of 2011, at the request of the Housing Partnership, the selectmen provided the authorization to seek grant funding to produce a Housing Production Plan for the town, consistent with the Selectmen’s fiscal 2012 goal to “remain compliant with the 10 percent affordable housing target.” A Housing Production Plan (HPP) includes a comprehensive housing needs assessment, sets numeric affordable housing production goals and implementation strategies.

The Partnership’s grant effort proved successful and the town, along with Belmont and Watertown, received a grant from the Metro Boston Sustainable Communities Consortium to pursue HPPs for each of the three communities. The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) and Metro West Collaborative Developers (a local non-profit community development group) will provide the bulk of the work required to produce our HPP.

Communities below the state’s 10 percent affordable requirement typically utilize HPPs to map out how they can be more proactive in regards to affordable housing, but Lexington now has the unique opportunity of using the process to plan what it wants to do now that it is in regulatory compliance with the law.

We hope you come to the June 21 forum (details attached) to learn more about the HPP drafting process, and more importantly, to voice your questions, comments, or concerns on all things housing!