2023 Worcester Council Candidates Share Housing, Homelessness Opinions In Questionnaire

WORCESTER, MA — When the Worcester City Council adopted a relatively conservative housing affordability ordinance in the spring, residents who wanted a stronger law warned councilors they would remember their votes during election season.

This week, the Worcester Together Affordable Housing Coalition — the group that pushed for higher affordability levels on that new inclusionary zoning ordinance — released the results of candidate questionnaires sent to everyone running in both the Sept. 5 primary and the November election beyond.

According to coalition member Benji Kemper, the group sent questionnaires to each candidate four separate times. Only 13 of the 27 candidates in the race answered, and some disagreed with items like expanding affordability requirements in new developments and increasing the number of code inspectors in Worcester.

Candidates who didn't answer were Larry Shetler in District 1; District 2 Councilor Candy Mero-Carlson and challengers Phil Palmieri and Rob Bilotta (a member of the coalition); District 3 Councilor George Russell; District 4 candidates Katia Norford and Maria Montano; and District 5 candidates Jose Rivera and Edson Montero. At-large candidates who didn't respond were Mayor Joseph Petty, incumbents Donna Colorio, Kate Toomey, and Moe Bergman and Bill Coleman.

Worcester's preliminary election will be held Sept. 5. The election will reduce the number of candidates running in the District 1, 2, 4 and 5 races. There is no preliminary for at-large candidates in 2023.

Here are how the candidates who did respond answered. The questions and candidate answers have been edited for length. The full questions and answers can be viewed on the Worcester Together Affordable Housing Coalition Facebook page.

Question 1: Would you support changing the IZ ordinance to require a minimum of 5% of the units to be set at 60% of the area median income? This would require all new developments to include units at 60% AMI. The law passed in April does not include this requirement.

Question 2: Developers can opt out of the IZ ordinance by paying a fee of 3% of the development cost. The ordinance also requires affordability levels to remain in place for 30 years. Would you support an opt-out fee of 5% and an affordability period of 99 years?

Question 3: Do you support new emergency family shelters and permanent supportive housing for people earning 30% AMI ($35,100 for a family of four) or below in your districts until sufficient permanent housing for the chronically homeless is created?

Question 4: Would you support hiring additional city code enforcement personnel to conduct more safety inspections, and requiring measures such as a code inspection prior to charging significant rent increases?

Question 5: Would you support incentives or other municipal funds for landlords and nonprofit property owners to upgrade rental properties for energy efficiency, health and sustainability without either displacing existing tenants or raising rents?

Jenny Pacillo, District 1

1: Yes. The area median income (AMI) for inclusionary zoning policy is based on the median income of all of Worcester county, which is much higher than the AMI of residents in our city.

2: Yes. I support requiring an opt-out fee set at 5% of total development costs and an affordability period of 99 years.

3: Yes. Building more affordable housing and programs that facilitate first-time homeownership takes time. In the interim, we need to open more emergency family shelters and supportive permanent housing to meet the extreme need for housing and shelter beds in our community.

4: Yes. It’s very important to me that residents have safe housing. Tragically, Worcester residents have died due to living in buildings that were not up to code. Funding the hiring of additional inspectors & requiring code inspections prior to significant rent increases are common sense policies that will help protect residents.

5: As a mom of three young kids, having a planet that is livable for current and future generations is important to me. I would support incentives and resources that would help make housing more energy efficient and healthy without unduly burdening landlords.

Dave Peterson, District 1

1: No. Rather than require developers to include a minimum of 5% of units at 60% AMI, I would rather incentivize them to increase the number of those units by lessening restrictions on items like size of units, building height, required number of parking spaces, and permitting process.

4: No. This is a split decision for me. I would not currently support increased city funding for additional code enforcement personnel, but I would definitely support measures such as code inspection prior to significant rent increases.

Peterso answered only "yes" to questions 2, 3 and 5.

Feanna Jattan-Singh, District 3

1: I think the percentage should be much higher, like 20% instead of 5%

2: No. I don’t think any developer should be allowed to opt out.

3: Yes. We need to help those that cannot afford a home to have a home, and a pathway to eventually homeownership.

4: Yes. We need to not only hire more code enforcement we need to hire a supervisor that holds them accountable, there seems to be a lack of accountability in this city.

Question 5: Yes. Yes we need to be more green and anything the city can do to help is great.

Ted Kostas, District 4

Kostas answered only "yes" to every question.

Luis Ojeda, District 4

1: No. I’d request additional information and consider all variables to make an informed decision.

2: No. It would be good to provide a data set with details and information that can be reviewed with this question. 99 years is a long time to have a set requirement. Building in flexibility to make adjustments based on up-to-date economic climates seems to be a better option.

3: Yes. Emergency shelters and permanent supportive housing should be available for individuals and families in need. To afford each other the feeling of safety and security should be a minimum requirement of a healthy community.

4: Yes. Ensuring a good quality of life requires proper oversight and compliance with standards put in place that holds people accountable. Adding more code enforcement personnel is important to the safety of our residents and also helps in holding everyone involved accountable.

5: Yes. Living in environmentally-safe spaces is critical to our health and leading long healthy lives. I support making incentives and resources available to all property owners in order to make homes more energy efficient and healthy.

Maureen Schwab, District 4

Schwab answered only "yes" to every question.

Etel Haxhiaj, District 5

1: Yes. I held this position strongly publicly throughout the Inclusionary Zoning public discourse and on the Council floor.

2: Yes. I supported this amendment on the Council floor.

3: Yes. I have been very vocal about the need to support more family emergency shelters, as well as for individuals. Especially now that we are facing a larger influx of families with children experiencing homelessness, and being displaced as a result of high rents.

4: Yes. I definitely think we need more inspectors and social workers on staff. I have been vocal during budget season and in meetings with the city manager that we need to fund our inspectional services more.

5: Yes. I have been supportive of landlord incentive programs and have asked the city to provide data regarding why the landlord incentive program has not yielded a lot of units. As we move to adopt the specialized stretch-in code and hopefully electrifying all our buildings, especially our triple-deckers, we need to combine any education of property owners with the resources and grants.

Guillermo Creamer, At-Large

2: Yes. I think the City should look into an IZ policy with tiered affordability periods, for example, a mixture of 30 year, 60 year, and 99 year affordability periods.

Creamer answered only "yes" to questions 1, 3, 4 and 5.

Johanna Hampton-Dance, At-Large

1: Yes. I will support the ask of 5% but do feel it could also be pushed to 10% at 60% AMI.

Hampton-Dance answered only "yes" to questions 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Khrystian King, At-Large

King answered only "yes" to every question.

Maydee Morales, At-Large

1: Yes. If/when elected this is one of the city policies that I very much plan to bring back to the floor of the city council.

2: Yes. The affordability period of 30 years does not really support stabilization of families and I would support the affordability period of 99 years. Given the lack of housing stock in our city any developer who wants to build in our city needs to agree with building for all in our community. If they are not willing to do that then I would support the opt-out fee set of 5%.

3: Yes. This would provide accessibility for the chronically homeless to much-needed services.

4: Yes. I would support this increase in our city funding, but I would also strongly encourage giving priority to hiring BIPOC personnel.

5: Yes. We need to ensure that we are taking care of our environment and the health of the families that reside in our city.

Thu Nguyen, At-Large

1: Yes. As a sitting councilor, I was advocating alongside the coalition hoping that we’d be able to pass it this time. Since it failed, my hope is with new folks on council next term we can pass this!

Nguyen answered only "yes" to questions 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Dominica Perrone, At-Large

1: Yes. I support more aggressive inclusionary zoning policies to ensure there are true affordable units are constantly being constructed with each new development.

2: Yes, future generations will struggle for years to come given existing inequities, the pandemic impacts and more. We need to ensure developers are responsible for the well-being of our constituents well into our futures in order to mitigate the harm on accessing housing we are currently experiencing.

3: Yes. Absolutely, I will always support more sheltering options for community members, especially those experiencing chronic homelessness.

4: Yes. Yes we need to ensure the city code and inspection office have the capacity to carry out and ensure all spaces are safe and live-able for community members from all areas of the city.

5: Yes. Absolutely a pillar in our campaign is support sustainable development.

RELATED: Early Voting In Worcester Begins Ahead Of 2023 Preliminary Election