Okay, being 7 p.m.

Thank you.

April 14th, 2026.

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I do see Helen from Bourne Enterprise.

Yes, hello.

I am recording.

Thank you so much.

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1929 2056.

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Is there anyone here for public comment this evening?

Okay, hearing none.

Next on our list is Bourne Affordable Housing Trust, a request for extension on deadline for decision regarding related to 173 Main Street, the former police station.

And I'm assuming Sue is speaking on this.

Yes, I I will.

So good evening, and thank you for letting us come.

I know that our deadline is up soon, unfortunately.

In my head, I don't remember exactly when it is, but we are starting on an a new thing at what which will take some more time.

So we wanted to extend the deadline.

And I think in your packet, I hope in your packet, you got um a um a copy of our letter, um, which also included some remark um some um plans um from our architect.

So what's happened is we've been trying to get some funding to help us do the planning.

And uh we were able, luckily the town of Bourne joined the regional um regional housing services for the Barnstable County, and they give a certain amount of time, and our town planner has been great about sharing some of that time with us.

Um our affordable housing trust and um partnership has voted to contribute more money, and what they will do is um they will help us plan, they will find out what the best usage is for the land, they'll help us plan for it.

Um we will come in front of you again, of course, uh throughout this process.

And if it's decided that whatever the plan is to go forward, they will help us do RFPs and uh help the town get more funding and and funding to help us so it isn't all on the town, um, is is one of our um one of our big points that we've been working on.

Uh we also I think I mentioned it before, have had people come to us that they would like not just housing on this property, they are looking for it because it's in a down their downtown area and they want to use it, they would like some kind of retail um uh almost like a gray gables market type area in it.

So we're trying to work with with all these different entities to be able to do what um the village of Buzzards Bay would like and to do some affordable housing.

We would also like um to do, I think we can do it this way.

We would like the affordable housing to be um workforce housing if if possible for town um employees.

We've been hearing a lot lately that um it's been hard to get employees because they can't find a decent rental or a place to you know to live.

And so we would like to um you know try to base some of our affordable housing on workforce housing in this area.

Um so in order to do this though with the regional housing services, they um insist.

Well, I mean, I I don't know, insist is probably a good word.

Um, they really want us to have a uh total um site visit and program um program assessment of the of the building and the land.

Uh so they will go forward with the help and to help us get even more funding, but we have to do this part to begin with.

So the first thing we did is go to um have this done by Leonardo Array, who we've used for most of our projects, and then um we also like I said before have voted to put more money into the um county regional housing services so that um we can get more planning done from them, but we we need more time to do all this, and we didn't really want to start it without getting a deadline um approved by you because we don't want to put money into something that we won't have.

Um so I that's it for me.

Thank you, Sue.

Um okay, so I will I see some hands, so I will start with MJ.

Your hand was up first.

Um I was wondering, Sue, how much time do you think you need?

Well, I mean I I don't mind coming back.

Uh so one of the things is in the proposal by Leonardi, when he finishes his assessment, which will probably be in a matter of I think a month, six weeks, he will give us a meeting, and we would like to do a joint meeting with uh select um board so that you know where everything is at that point.

Um and then we would want you know more than that, obviously, time, uh, to try and get the plan once we have this assessment done to try and see what the um shared regional housing program is saying to us before we apply for more funding.

So I I would say we would need um till the end of the summer anyway, you know, maybe into the fall.

Um do you think another six months?

I mean, if we take another six month extension, I think another six months, but I think we will come in front of you more, you know, at least a couple of times in that six months.

So that now that we have something going on, and we also have more time.

Um we have a project um assistant that has worked for us for a long time, but it was sort of very part-time because she had another job, but she retired, luckily.

And um, she is going to and she worked in housing, so she's going to at the same time um be uh concentrating on finding a font funding for this.

And most of the problem with the funding was they want the the plans before they want to do the funding.

So we have to put money in ourselves.

And um, so that's what we're doing.