The Marion Affordable Housing Trust is taking steps to assess its progress since 2015 on procuring opportunities for affordable housing in town. On March 9, the trust met with Eric Arbeene from the Southeastern Regional Planning & Economic Development District (SRPEDD) to review the 2015 Marion Housing Plan and learned that, despite having accomplished very little listed in that plan, the town will nonetheless exceed its 10 percent state-mandated quota for affordable housing.
Trust members acknowledged that affordable housing is a sensitive subject for some Marion residents, and community perception is often just one of the many constraints that obstruct affordable housing developments in communities.
“With 40B,” Arbeene said, “some people just tense right up and they don’t know what it is …” Arbeene’s pre-meeting research revealed to him that a 40B development, the proposed Heron Cove off Wareham Road, was currently before the Zoning Board of Appeals, and this latest expanded 120-unit development would put Marion at about 13 percent affordable housing.
The town is also engaging a consultant to assess town-owned properties such as the Community Center parcel donated to the town from the VFW exclusively for senior housing, while the demographics support a growing need for senior housing in Marion.
According to Arbeene, the population in Marion has barely increased since 2000, but the composition of the population surely has. The 60-plus “retirement age” population has increased from 22.7 percent in 2000 to 34.1 percent in 2019, while school enrollment at Sippican School has decreased by 16 percent over the past decade. Just over 44 percent of Marion households include a person age 65 or over, and 25.7 percent of those households are single-person.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has classified households that spend over 30 percent of their income on housing as “cost-burdened” households, and in Marion 30 percent of households are classified as cost-burdened. Of those cost-burdened households, 27 percent are homeowners, and 45 percent are renters.
Just glancing at Marion’s 2015 Housing Needs Assessment, Arbeene got a sense of the development constraints that had encumbered affordable housing in Marion back in 2015. The trust confirmed that Marion has since then approved an updated Master Plan and is serviced by some degree of public transportation. Other than that, the town has moved very little toward accomplishing prior goals in the 2015 plan, such as adopting bylaws and changing zoning conducive to housing development, providing incentives for senior developments, or modifying multiple-unit rental housing provisions.
Arbeene wasn’t trying to make anyone on the trust feel bad about that, he said. He just needed to get a sense of what has been done since the last time SRPEDD assisted the town with this assessment type.
Arbeene noted that development constraints are still there by and large, and some trust members suggested it was due to a lack of capacity, time, money, and a lack of interest.
“Small town, lot of demands,” commented Selectman and Planning Board member Norm Hills, who sits on the Affordable Housing Trust. “And right now, the (costs to clean up the wastewater) lagoons are eating us alive.”
Moving forward, Arbeene will assist the trust in developing goals and strategies in the affordable housing arena. “How can we overcome some of these constraints? Can we overcome some of the constraints?” asked Arbeen. “Do we have the same issues?” It looks like a “yes,” he commented, turning to community perception again as a significant constraint.
“Community perceptions — something that’s not just in Marion,” said Arbeene. “There are a lot of misconceptions about that.” Affordable housing, however, is in high demand and a priority in the commonwealth at this time, he noted. He told the trust that he would do further research, share it with the trust in the meantime, and return for another presentation during the trust’s meeting in April.
That would be helpful, said Hills, but he added that, once the second 40B process inches toward completion, “The pressure to push for more affordable housing is going to go way down.” This could alter the goals and strategies of Marion in the foreseeable future.
The next regular meeting of the Marion Affordable Housing Trust will be on April 13 at 6:00 pm. The trust will meet again in the meantime on March 30 at 6:00 pm just to vote on two invoices with a quorum present.
Marion Affordable Housing Trust
By Jean Perry