Susan Miller brought an idea to the Marion Affordable Housing Trust on Tuesday night, and Terri Santos may have identified the missing link to make it work.
During the public meeting held at the Police Station, the two AHT members expressed interest in a collaboration that would put free rain barrels in the hands of financially stressed Marion homeowners. They could use the water in their gardens and yards.
Miller told the AHT that she contacted the Town of Mattapoisett, which had participated in Great American Rain Barrel project. Marion was late to that party, but Miller recommended meeting with the Marion Conservation Commission in February offering the program to the town. She said Mattapoisett distributed between 30 and 60 rain-catching barrels.
In the meeting packet distributed on Tuesday were display advertisements from two big-box stores in neighboring Wareham. They featured different barrel designs and options with a price range from below $50 (collapse-able) to over $130.
Imagining a process in which the AHT would contact residents and give them choices followed by their selections, Miller would go to one of the stores and place an order.
Miller considered Community Preservation Act funding via the town’s Community Preservation Committee, but Santos said that cannot happen this year. She did, however, note that the AHT has approximately $8,000 in a cash account that could become a funding source for the barrels. She said such a program would necessarily be opened to everyone in town, and the AHT would not be allowed to confine availability to low-income housing.
Miller said representatives of the Great American Rain Barrel program are willing to participate in a Zoom call.
“If we’re using our own money, it doesn’t have to be deed restricted,” said Santos, noting that the CPC money would require research.
AHT member Toby Ast suspects that projects qualifying for CPA funding are permanently fixed to the ground. He said he will look to confirm the rules with CPC Chairman Jeff Doubrava.
“The real problem is getting the water into the rain barrel,” said AHT member Norm Hills, who has a rain barrel and said they are a challenge to operate.
An update on this topic will be included on the AHT’s next meeting agenda.
The other agenda item drawing substantial discussion is the AHT’s desire to revise the town’s bylaw on Accessory Apartments.
As someone who has spent much of the last several years examining Marion’s bylaws, Hills recommended sifting out items that are addressed in other bylaws under different definitions.
“They all need to be put together. They’ve all been added over years and they don’t work together,” said Hills, the chair of Marion’s Bylaw Codification Committee. He noted that any bylaw change must go through Town Counsel. “There’s always a legal aspect that may not be anything we talked about.”
Hills described the problem with bylaw amendments as “boobytraps that have been there for years. … We need to make sure that the bylaws are enforceable by the Building commissioner (Bob Grillo.)”
Hills said he will dig into the Accessory Apartment Bylaw and will propose an edit based on feedback from the AHT members.
Santos would like to set a time to meet with Grillo and hopes to bring the bylaw to Fall Town Meeting.
In other action, the members voted to recommend that the Select Board appoint Eileen Marum to the AHT.
Hills will also field comments from members and propose an update to Santos’ first draft of a letter to former Select Board member and Water/Sewer commissioner John Waterman, who wrote the Planning Board to recommend that Marion scrap its Affordable/Inclusionary Housing Bylaw.
The next meeting of the Marion Affordable Housing Trust is scheduled for Tuesday, August 15, at 6:00 pm.
Marion Affordable Housing Trust
By Mick Colageo