The Brown School
The Brown School, Newburyport
I’ve been scratching my head as to where in the world the push for 27-29 affordable senior housing units came from for the Brown School, which is a complete about face from the direction that the City had been going for as re-use for that property.
It has come from good folks in Newburyport.
And from someone who lives in the Brown School neighborhood 27-29 units of any size is nuts. This is one of the most densely populated areas of the city with narrow 18th century streets. On street parking is already a nightmare, we already have what I call “neighborhood road rage” when it comes to parking and traffic.
The temperature in the neighborhood would go down a whole lot if the proposal was for 10 residential units. That’s realistically 20 cars. And if the neighborhood got to have the Newburyport Youth Services (NYS) stay, that would be a big extra bonus.
There are a variety of different affordable categories which are referred to as Affordable Medium Income (AMI). Here is table from a 2015 household study from Boston, Newburyport is considered part of the Boston Hud Federal Management Regulation (FMR) area.
2015 Affordable Medium Income (AMI)
2015 Affordable Medium Income (AMI)
As you can see there are different percentages of the AMI, 30%, 50%, 60%, 80%, 100% and 120%.
According to HUD the Medium Income for Newburyport in 2017 is $103,000. This table show 50%, “Extremely Low” and 80%.
Newburyport 2017 AMI
Newburyport 2017 AMI
If the City put out a Request For Proposal (RFP) for 10 units, they could be half market rate and half affordable, or all affordable at let’s say 5 different levels of AMI (that’s the % of income) if funding could be found for different AMI levels in the same building. I think under scenarios along these lines that most of the neighborhood would be breath a sigh of relief.
Newburyport Youth Services (NYS)
Newburyport Youth Services (NYS)
And my understanding is that there is no place for NYS to go even if there was funding. My impression was that NYS did not want to be in the building or the neighborhood, but that’s not the case at all — they love where they are. I thought NYS had somewhere they could go, but apparently that is not the case.
Councilor Jared Eigerman’s Ordinance now in front of the City Council is a wonderful starting place. I hope we can get to a place where NYS, affordable housing folks and the neighborhood are not pitted against each other, but where we can all come together and find a solution that has something for everyone and not everyone gets everything they want – that’s what I call good negotiating.
Editor’s Note:
This is from the 2014 Brown School Feasibility Study. There are 37 available parking spaces. If there were 10 units, that would realistically be 20 cars and 17 left over parking spaces. The basketball court at the Brown School Park and possibly parts of the Brown School Park itself could be used for snow emergency parking for the neighborhood along with those extra 17 spaces.
Brown School Parking from the 2014 Feasibility Study