Barnaby Prendergast
Candidate for:
Councilor at Large
What do you see as the biggest housing problems in Gloucester; whom do they affect; and what would you do to rectify these problems?
TLDR;
•Supply and demand imbalance
•Affects everyone to some degree
•Roll back some of the obstacles hindering construction
By far the biggest issue, and the one we have most control of, is the mismatch between supply and demand.
When there is insufficient supply, the demand creates competition between buyers and coupled with the low interest rates of recent years and other factor we do not have much, if any, control over this forces prices sky high.
Historically Gloucester has had a higher proportion of naturally affordable housing. As demand has increased many of the lower priced homes have rapidly increased in value until our prices are now closing in on (and occasionally exceeding) our traditionally more expensive neighboring communities.
The knock-on effects of this are clear; there is now a huge gap in the housing marketplace. Where we used to have inventory available in the region of $300k we now have almost none. In fact, we see very little for sale on the market between three hundred and seven hundred thousand dollars. This is far beyond the reach of most young professional family households, let alone older folk looking to retire and downsize.
Rents too have risen rapidly. Some of this is attributable to the higher costs of maintenance, stricter housing law and so on. Again though, a shortage in supply is a principal driver. If there were sufficient availability, landlords would be competing for tenants (exerting a downward pressure on pricing); as it stands, tenants compete for rentals (for ing prices up).
What to do in this situation? It's a conundrum, in some ways, but not particularly complicated. A natural housing market would self correct - supply would increase to match demand. We do not, however, have a natural market. What we have is a very restricted, prohibitive and exclusionary set of housing regulations which effectively dammed the supply side of the market for many years. We are not unique in this- similar or worse zoning exists in many municipalities throughout the region.
We need to pay close attention to how we can modify our zoning to encourage construction
We need to be a welcoming city for affordable housing initiatives
We need to make city-wide commitments to attract developers who will address the "missing middle" in the housing market. Some of this may be Affordable Housing at the 80% AMI level, some at 100%, some at 120%.
How do you define affordable housing and workforce housing and whom do you see as needing them?
TL;DR
•affordfable = 1/3(ish) gross income on housing or less
•Affordable (with restrictions) 1/3(ish) of 80%AMI and below
•Workforce 1/3(ish) of 60% to 120% of AMI
•A high proportion of Gloucester households are burdened and would be eligible (particularly locals who did not benefit from inheritance- some who did are low income but securely housed)
The usual and most commonly used to objectively define the term affordable among housing professionals can be stated roughly as
"Housing that costs no more one third of a household's gross income is considered affordable".
The figure is sometimes lowered by a few percent, but for a "hold your finger in the air" approximation, this is what housing people mean. So really, even without getting into the more complicated HUD definitions, what is affordable depends entirely on a given household's circumstances.
A household with an income of $300k a year can still be cost burdened, in theory, if they are spending $12k a month on rent or a mortgage. Of course, such a situation would probably be a matter of personal choice, so we do not spend a huge amount of energy worrying about folk with that much income.
Affordable and workforce housing have more specific meaning when we look at subsidized and income restricted housing.
The standard legal definitions are explicit and laid out by the Federal Housing and Urban Development department (HUD).
Areas of the country are identified according to various criteria. The areas are surveyed for demographic information, the salary information is used both to calculate Area Median Incomes and Fair Market Rental rates.
These data are then used as the foundation for calculating rents as defined as a percentage of area median income with the "affordable" level ceiling set at 30% of the gross income for that bracket of AMI.
The figures are adjusted to account for the number of occupants in any given household (this increases the household income ceiling, and there for the availability of housing for people with children, households with more than one income and so on).
Th effect of all of this is to make the standard definition of deed restricted Affordable Housing at 80% of AMI, with Workforce Housing somewhat overlapping at levels set between 60% and 120% of AMI. Deeply Affordable housing at it's least expensive level is set at 30% of AMI, though I know of no law prohibiting lower levels and of course there are voucher schemes, public housing and suchlike to supplement coverage for extremely low income households.
Who needs this housing? It's clear that a very high proportion of Gloucester households, when identified by income, would be eligible for either Low income or moderate/workforce housing. The number that actually need them is probably similar, although lower as Gloucester has quite a significant mortgage-free owner occupier population who have inherited their housing. Even once that number is accounted for, the number of people who are housing cost burdened is staggering, and approaching half of all households.
About one third of Gloucester rent their housing. Rents have risen, alongside almost all other costs to do with living expenses, whilst incomes have not. Inflation has further shrunk the buying-power of those incomes.
We have a great need; young families of moderate (i.e. normal for young families) income find it nearly impossible to find housing that meets their needs at a reasonable price.
I watched my neighbor's children leave Gloucester one by one as the owner-builder opportunities were regulated out of existence. I followed quite closely my then skipper's daughter, husband and her young kids search for years to find a place to buy, only to be outbid over and over again by above-asking-price cash buyers.
What are you hearing from businesses and employers about their ability to hire or retain workers given the current housing situation?
TL;DR
•Workers are hard to find
•Workers are hard to keep
•High numbers who commute to Gloucester
•Considered building their own worker housing
•Importing labor to work with visas from abroad
It's a constant struggle for many. It's clear from conversations with business owners that finding staff for some positions is challenging. This can also be true for the fishing industry; some jobs, although well paid during the high season, are gone shortly after labor day. A great deal of manual laboring jobs dry up once leaves are down yards are winterized. Switch to plowing for some enterprises is possible, but relying on weather for income is hit and miss. A couple of years of low winter snow can make a big hole in someone's income.
I had a chat with one fast food employee who, at 23, was struggling to find any local housing and said their boss was looking into building something cheap just to help their staff live within a reasonable distance to work.
Other local businesses rely on imported labor with visas for the high season and house them in temporary accommodation (sometimes at the campsite).
High housing costs are one of a number of reasons we have such a large workforce that commutes *in* to Gloucester for work. This exacerbates traffic and parking issues, and leads to a false sense of overcrowding downtown.
It's a very inefficient structure with a large number of poor results.
Do you think new housing development is being shared fairly across all neighborhoods in Gloucester? If not, where is it lacking, and how can the City address this inequity?
Cities, towns and villages, historically, grow organically, by increments.
They tend to have densely populated areas which serve as hubs of trade, commerce, communication, administration and sometimes industry. In between these settlements land was used differently- agriculture, sometimes industry etc.
Gloucester grew in a similar fashion, with a distinct downtown as the principal settlement and villages, around, but some distance from, this central focus. Downtown has always developed with higher density than the surrounding areas, and historical accounts describe the development of satellite settlements such as East Gloucester.
In recent decades there has been a population shift from the downtown areas to more suburban settings (this can bee noted using the voter registration documents where new streets spring up out of town and the per dwelling occupancy of the downtown area reduces).
If you're wondering what this means for new development it's this; housing is not evenly distributed across the whole of Gloucester, and nor would it ever have been in any naturally expanding city. We have, over the decades, seen more suburban construction. We have also seen fewer people living, on average, in each household. Zoning has been restrictive throughout the city, but it appears only downtown has *lost* significant population.
Much new housing outside the downtown area is at the higher end of the market. We should probably be allowing and encouraging more "cluster" type development, (i.e. higher density housing in small areas) . Requiring an acre or two for single or two family homes in areas with sewer and water access will yield very little, if any, mid or low cost housing.
What specific steps will you take to increase the supply of affordable and workforce housing in Gloucester, especially for local workers and young people and young families?
•Advocate for a less exclusionary mindset
•Relax permitting to an extent
•Encourage the establishment of 40R
•redouble efforts to identify city owned land suitable for housing
•cooperate with neighboring towns on policy if possible
•consider debt override for funds
The most important step necessary, in my view, is a shift in mindset. It's happening to some extent already now we are within an obvious crisis.
We simply cannot continue to pretend the track the city has been on for the last few decades- restricting growth, placing expensive obstacles in the paths of small-scale local development and developers will accomplish much at all to preserve working class populations in Gloucester, encourage the construction of affordable or workforce housing, or do anything but preserve a superficial look to the town by sacrificing all of the other aspects that make Gloucester such an interesting, joyful and vibrant place to live.
We must create a framework that encourages the development of modest, efficient, pleasant housing for both young and old. We are fortunate at this present time to have a state administration who are prepared to invest (at last) significant funds in Housing. We need to make the city a welcoming place for those funds; we would be taking advantage of 40 R and 40S frame works which would address, at least in part, some of the supply side issues.
My personal belief is that we should continue, or even redouble, efforts to identify city owned land that is both suitable for development by organizations who would construct housing for both elderly and younger families.
I would like to see the city cooperate with our neighboring towns on addressing housing shortages- the issues we have are not unique.
I would like the whole city to consider "putting its money where its mouth is" and consider a loan override to invest in the direct construction of housing. It is not that what is being done isn't helpful; it is. We just need more of it.
Now that Massachusetts has legalized Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) by right in all residential areas, what proactive or incentivizing steps can the City take to encourage their development as part of Gloucester’s broader housing strategy?
It might be feasible to look into building on the structure of the City Development Block Grants to encourage ADU construction as Affordable units, with deed restrictions of 15 years. I know the program exists, but it does not seem to be widely used.
Lower cost improvement loans under these conditions might increase the availability of rental units, benefit the local owner-developers with lowered overheads but not tie them in perpetuity to having Affordable deed restrictions. Fifteen years is a long time for a housing market.
Where do you stand on two or three family homes across all neighborhoods to meet the housing needs of the average Gloucester family and worker?
I stand next to it, holding its hand, trying to help it take a step forward. No one who doesn't wish to develop will develop.
It allows people to do more with their own property if they choose.
Do you generally support building more modest size and clustered housing—such as duplexes, multi-family, townhouses etc.? If so, where in the city do you see opportunities for this kind of housing development?
I do support this kind of housing. It is efficient use of land, has a lower environmental impact than sprawling development for the same number of units, and makes better sharing of resources possible.
There is land, maybe currently contaminated by industrial use close to both downtown (walking distance) and transportation corridors that could in the future be developed if the pollution is dealt with. There are opportunities in some of the larger City lots that do not fall into the protected category that might also be suitable for some housing as long as the impact on the natural environment is low. There might be the possibility of imaginative solutions which address parking and housing together- we have a vast acreage of surface lots which spend much of their time empty. building structured parking and housing on these ought to be examined, with direct refence on how to fund such improvements.
What specific zoning reforms or other modifications would you advocate to support more housing, including for example, multi-family, accessory dwelling units, and affordable homes? How could permitting and approvals be streamlined while preserving community input and environmental protections? Do you support eliminating or modifying practices like minimum lot sizes or parking requirements?
•Talks between the city and local builders to identify worst obstacles
•increased factual documentation on the effects of maintaining the status quo vs changes.
•increase monitoring (with advocacy) of progress on housing production targets
•Watch and respond to demographic development.
•Make use of/further promote the community development department's work
I would advocate for detailed discussions with builders on which aspects of the bureaucratic process cost them the most in terms of time and money. That alone is likely to produce the most pragmatic and enabling path to supporting more housing. Every obstacle has a cost, the more we have, the more expensive it is to build, the higher the prices will be, the greater the need to build expensive home to turn a profit, the less affordable development we'll see.
I would advocate for far more information being offered to the public about the different attitudes towards new construction lead, with clear explanations of what the city council and administration is allowed to do, and what is forbidden.
I would support reexamination of minimum lots sizes and mandatory parking requirement, with a view to enabling more housing units. We should be designing environments principally for humans to live in, rather than cars to park in.
I also think we should pay more attention to the progress of our housing plan, and examine it in relation to neighboring towns and cities. where necessary we should be prepared to modify zoning to help us achieve stated production aims.
We should watch changing enrollment in schools, regularly examine the demographic shift to help Gloucester maintain a young and energetic population which in no small part be supporting Gloucester's elderly. The community development department would play the key roll in this, and we should be supporting their efforts wherever possible.
Build not for today but tomorrow as well- the future is more to the young.
What role should the City play in encouraging the redevelopment of underutilized commercial or industrial sites, such as the Shaw’s properties, into housing or mixed-use developments? What incentives could the City offer to support this?
This should be ground zero for some kind of mixed-use, housing and retail/commercial enterprise development zone. It amazes me that such an area of land sits, underutilized, underperforming as a tax revenue source, eye-sore, blighted area.
It makes no sense to me; the area was formerly an busy industrial, trade and transportation location and is now...a private car park, and mostly an empty one at that.
Would you support a “Tenant Opportunity to Purchase” ordinance, enabling tenants the first right to purchase a building if the owner decides to put it on the market?
Yes, 100%. A right to first refusal is fairly common in some places, as are other mechanisms such as a right to lifetime occupancy before transfer. All are contractual relationships set up with conditions by agreement.
What steps would you take to prevent the displacement of long-term residents and vulnerable populations as housing costs rise? Do you support the Rent Stabilization bill currently before the Legislature? Why or why not?
I have mixed feelings about rent stabilization bill. It has benefits, but those are principally to people who are currently housed.
There are many detriments, probably the most significant of which is that they often act as a disincentive for people to invest in the property market. I know that there's an argument that discouraging people from building or buying properties and rent-seeking, but it also acts as a deterrent for people to increase supply. The net result is continued supply choking, which is...inflationary.
Price controls don't help if there's no availability; fixing the price of cheeseburgers at 99c doesn't fill anyone's belly if there's no beef to make the burgers with.
Would you consider policies like Real Estate Transfer fees on high-end properties to increase funding for the Affordable Housing Trust? Would you support a Home Rule Petition to establish a small percentage Gloucester transfer fee on real estate transactions over $2 million?
I would. We already have what is effectively a wealth tax in the form of property tax. This would be a marginal increase of wealth tax on transactions by people who are by almost any measure quite wealthy.
A major caveat would be that I would like to see, using data from previous years' sales, to establish exactly how much such a tax would have raised in the past. The number of people who will have feelings about such a tax will be far, far greater than the number directly affected by it, and the reward should justify the pain of those *feelings*. I.e. If there is not a likely significant increase in funding for housing, it might be challenging to justify it.
How will you work to keep Gloucester livable and affordable for fishermen, teachers, service workers, young people and families, and seniors—particularly when it comes to housing, transportation, and access to essential services?
I would like to see more recognition that assistance offered by the various subsidized housing schemes does, in fact, assist the groups mentioned directly, even if it is not *exclusively* helpful to them.
I will continue to advocate for housing policy improvements, continue to help to identify policy areas which might alleviate the housing crisis, continue to call out (from an evidence based perspective) misinformation that serves to worsen the opportunities for those facing economic challenges.
I will work fairly and honestly with and within the community to find funding for economically viable housing whether private money, public/private partnerships or non-profit and state funding sources. I will watch for success and failures on these fronts to try to ensure steady improvement.
Earlier we asked about access to housing for seniors and young people. How will you work to reduce the shortage of affordable housing—particularly for other vulnerable households facing housing insecurity or homelessness? What steps would you take to expand access to supportive housing for people with disabilities, mental health needs, or substance use disorders?
It is my belief that, within the scope of practicability, I am my brother's keeper, at least to the extent that a fundamental part of a moral society is to support people in need (what ever the reason for those needs). It's just what communities should, in my opinion, do.
Housing, in my opinion, is a right, and the market would, in an ideal world, provide sufficient that almost everyone would find access to manageable, livable accommodations.
While I'm aware there are those who might chose the slightly nomadic life and stay in the woods or on the streets, I am generally of the opinion that if those people (whose numbers are always wildly exaggerated) were to change their minds and decide to seek more conventional housing, IF THAT HOUSING IS NIGH ON IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND, WE HAVE A SERIOUS PROBLEM.
Given that we know for a fact most homeless people *cannot* find stable, affordable places to live we need to collectively acknowledge there is a major issue.
The objective should not be to obstruct, but construct. We should be looking at ways to help guide people from precarious situations in to less precarious ones, rather than shunting them between different dead end, superficial symptom-only support-services.
Housing policy intersects with issues like transit, racial equity, climate resilience, and economic sustainability. How can Gloucester’s housing policies advance progress in these areas?
Once the mind is open to the idea of inclusivity (rather than just tolerance) I think there is a shift away from an obstructive mindset to one that supports a broader range of opportunity.
Making car ownership a choice through careful establishment of neighborhoods where one is not essential intersects with environmental goals. Having the option of walking around to get to shops is healthier and uses fewer natural resources. It literally costs less to live, and with adequate population density (and I mean, of a density that the city has had in its recent past) makes smaller stores viable on the high street. *Needing* fewer cars means less traffic; fewer parking headaches.
Ability to perform a task is the goal for employment- race doesn't enter the equation. A diverse economy has positions for all, irrespective of superficial qualities like race or gender.
Infrastructure is needed for all of this, but the principle type infrastructure of cities is housing.
How will you promote the development of energy-efficient, climate-resilient housing in Gloucester to address rising energy costs and climate risks? Do you support requiring all-electric systems in all new construction as part of that effort? Why or why not?
I have mixed feelings on this, although I can see the general movement is towards electricity only housing.
At the end of the day, the make or break of having this kind of reliance is supply.
If we do not cater for the demand which we are building by the change in energy source we will find ourselves in a pickle.
Consequently I am very much of the view that we should be building supply side (both generation and distribution) in an environmentally responsible fashion, and conservation through efficiently design housing is a big part of this.
For us as a city we could be forcing the all-electric model. I'm not certain we are there yet, but I am fairly certain if we don't get there alone the state will impose the change upon us eventually. This raises the question of what we can do to prepare.
A lot of the federal tax incentives for cleaner energy sources seems to be uncertain right now, I hope that situation will not persist. I have some reservations about the economics of offshore wind, but on-shore seems to have even more opponents. In any case, as a city the "offshore-wind or not" question is pretty much outside the scope of our control. I would, however, be keen to see what, if any, help the city could be doing to encourage solar power- primarily on city properties, but also residential if possible. As long as the economics work out I would probably support an examination of including, with obvious exceptions, a solar requirement for new homes, eventually.