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21.343 An Order to Surplus City Land for Affordable Housing and a Community Resilience Hub off Crafts Avenue - CertifiedCity of Northampton MASSACHUSETTS _________ In City Council, October 21, 2021 Upon the recommendation of Mayor David J. Narkewicz and Planning & Sustainability 21.343 An Order to Surplus City Land for Affordable Housing and Community Resilience Hub off Crafts Avenue WHEREAS, Consistent with the Sustainable Northampton Comprehensive Plan, Open Space, Recreation, and Multi-Use Trail Plan, Housing Needs Assessment and Strategic Housing Plan, and Unlocking Opportunity: An Assessment of Barriers to Fair Housing, the city has a comprehensive affordable housing program, including limited development, funding, regulatory incentives, and surplusing of city land; WHEREAS, Consistent with the Climate Resilience and Regeneration Plan, Community Resilience Building Findings, and Mayor’s Task Force on Panhandling, the city has a program to create a Community Resilience Hub as a downtown facility with a coordinated program for frontline communities and any residents who face chronic and acute stress due to disasters, pandemics, climate change, and other social and economic challenges. It will serve the 1% (homeless and those with severe chronic stress), the 15% (below the poverty line), the 40% (housing- burdened and under chronic stress) and the 100% (those at risk of acute adverse events), by providing access to resource, a social network, and building social resilience; WHEREAS, Downtown studio apartments are especially important to help transition people who are experiencing houselessness or who face extreme housing burdens; WHEREAS, The city has made offers for the Roundhouse and for St. John Cantius Church and explored other options for a community resilience hub, while exploring a back-up option of developing a hub in a new building, potentially co-located with affordable housing; WHEREAS, The city’s property extending from the Puchalski Municipal Office Building to the Roundhouse bus station driveway to Crafts Avenue, to the southerly most parking spaces in the city hall parking lot potentially is viable for affordable housing studios and/or a community resilience hub; Ordered, that City Council declares this land surplus to city needs; Further that the Mayor is authorized to transfer deeds, easements, and/or leases for the land for affordable housing and/or a community resilience hub, subject to restrictions and conditions that the Mayor imposes to accomplish these needs.