Town of Arlington, Fair Housing Action Plan (July 2021)

Citation: Town of Arlington, Fair Housing Action Plan (July 2021)
Jurisdiction: Arlington (municipal)
Source: Official source
Original Source: https://www.arlingtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/57214/637641171662530000 ↗

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of HPP recommendations. The seven-member committee is largely (though not exclusively) White and composed
of members of the Select Board and Town Meeting, and leaders from Arlington Housing Authority, Housing
Corporation of Arlington, and area nonprofits. Recent HPIC initiatives have focused on establishing an
Affordable Housing Trust Fund adopted by Town Meeting in November 2020, and studying a Real Estate
Transfer Fee, for which a home rule petition was approved by the April 2021 Annual Town Meeting.
Like the HPP, the 2015 Master Plan does not directly reference fair housing, but includes housing
recommendations that seek to increase housing affordability and diversity through both resource allocation and
regulatory amendments. Of course, housing is one of the Plan’s many topics, and the Master Plan also includes
recommendations that require the Town to balance its housing goals with other town priorities, including
preservation of natural and historic resources. Implementation is overseen by the Master Plan Implementation
Committee and its various subcommittees.
In addition to the Town’s plans, the North Suburban Consortium (NSC) also produced a plan relevant to Arlington.
The NSC is a group of eight municipalities, including Arlington, that have a cooperative agreement to gain access
to HUD’s HOME program funds for affordable housing development. Working with the NSC and consulting firm
OKM, Arlington prepared an Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing (AI) in 2012. The plan identified three key
impediments to fair housing choice: language and cultural differences, increasing use of the internet to market
properties (and the lack of fair housing standards used by online marketing platforms), and a lack of income that
would enable access to Arlington’s relatively