Revised HPP now available!

Please see the revised HPP, which was updated based on public comments to the November 2020 draft HPP.

Housing Needs and Concerns

Foxborough has launched a community-driven planning process to identify housing goals and facilitate a series of community discussions around housing needs and concerns in town.

Learn more below!

Updates

Revised HPP now available!

The Town has released a final draft of the HPP, now available for review and discussion.

The Town released a draft HPP in November 2020. Members of the community then attended virtual office hours to discuss the plan and submitted written comments on the draft. This final draft responds those discussions and comments, while still reflecting the broader public engage process ongoing since 2019.

This final draft of the HPP contains a set of recommendations that will advance the community’s housing goals and is achievable by the Town over the next five years. We anticipate bringing this final version of the HPP to the Board of Selectmen and the Planning Board for their approval in the coming months.

About

Foxborough is launching a community-driven planning process to identify housing goals and facilitate a series of community discussions around housing needs and concerns in town. This dialogue will culminate in a Housing Production Plan (HPP), which will outline strategies for Foxborough to plan for and guide development of housing. The HPP will build a vision for the town’s housing landscape, lay out context-sensitive strategies to expand housing choice and opportunity, and recommend practical action items to meet housing need and demand. Foxborough has partnered with the Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) to develop the HPP with a grant from the state Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs.

Timeline

HPP Draft Components:

Housing Needs Assessment: September – February 2019
Development Constraints and Opportunities: February 2019 – April 2020
Housing Goals and Strategies: March – June 2020
Housing Production Plan: July – September 2020

Four community-wide discussions are planned to occur throughout the process. These include a forum held in November 2019, a housing panel discussion held in February 2020, an online open house scheduled for June 2020, and a discussion of the draft plan in September 2020. Information about these and other opportunities to participate in the process will be posted on this website; check back for more information!

Working Group

The HPP is guided by a Working Group made up of town residents from a variety of backgrounds. Working Group members are responsible for sharing local knowledge of community attitudes towards housing, housing need and demand, challenges and barriers to meeting demand, and development opportunity areas; identifying stakeholders; and reviewing and providing input on plan elements. The Working Group will meet approximately 5 times over the course of the planning process.

Past Events

Project Kickoff Day

September 23, 2019

The project team had a kickoff day in Foxborough to gain a greater understanding of Foxborough’s housing context. The day included a first meeting with the project working group, a tour of the town, focus groups with local real estate professionals and with seniors, and informal discussions with stakeholders. Some of the most common themes included concern over increasing housing costs, which are especially concerning for those on a fixed income; lack of affordable options for starter homes or downsizing; and the desire for housing to fit in with Foxborough’s character. For a more detailed summary of the day, click the link to the right.

Event Materials

First HPP Forum

November 13, 2019

The Town hosted a Conversation on Housing to share information on the state of housing in Foxborough and to learn about residents’ priorities for housing in town. About 40 people attended the forum in person, and it was also broadcast on Foxboro Cable Access. Additionally, roughly 200 people engaged with an online version of the forum. Attendees heard a presentation about the “State of Housing” in Foxborough given by MAPC, and then participated in discussions to respond to the data, share their housing goals for the town, and consider the variety of housing needs in Foxborough. Many of the themes were consistent with what we heard at the kickoff day, including concern over rising housing costs; the need for options for seniors, including both support for aging in place and affordable downsizing options; housing for families, especially those starting out; and housing that fits the scale and character of the community. This input will be used by the project team to guide the focus of the HPP moving forward. For a full summary of the forum and the responses we received, click the link to the right.

Event Materials

Housing Panel Discussion

February 11, 2020

At fall engagement events, we’ve often heard residents express the need for smaller, more affordable housing options for families starting out or for residents who want to downsize while staying in Foxborough. To better understand what it takes to build this sort of housing, and why isn’t it happening in Foxborough, we invited a panel of experts – including developers and architects – to discuss what it takes to build smaller, more affordable housing options. Over 70 residents joined the conversation.

Event Materials

Event Summary
Event Video Note: The video begins with introductory remarks and presentations from the panelist; the Q&A portion begins at approximately 40 minutes.

HPP Online Open House

June – July 2020

Many thanks to the over 240 people who visited the online open house! At open house, which was open for 4 weeks from late June through mid-July, participants learned about possible strategies to help address the housing needs and concerns that have been raised over the past several months, as well as possible locations to recommend housing. Participants weighed in on each strategy and proposed locations for the type of housing they would like to see in town. The input received through the open house will be used to craft recommendations for the HPP, which will be shared in the fall.

Event Materials

Around Foxborough housing episode with Planning Director Paige Duncan and working group member Jared Craig
PDF version of the online open house
Online open house videos with introduction from Planning Direction Paige Duncan

Public Comment on Draft

In November 2020, the Town of Foxborough and MAPC released a draft HPP for public comment and presented the plan to the Board of Selectmen and Planning Board. MAPC also held four virtual office hours to discuss the plan with members of the community who had questions and comments. Community members then submitted 74 comments on the plan that ranged from specific ideas about actions to broad approaches to planning for the town. In 2021, we revised the HPP in response to the written comments and what we heard in the office hours, while keeping in mind the broader sentiments heard during public engagement efforts in 2019 and 2020.

Event Materials

November 2020 Draft

Affordable Housing

Housing is considered “affordable” when it costs 30% or less of a household’s income. One type of affordable housing is “naturally affordable,” which refers to unsubsidized, market-rate housing that is less expensive because it is older or smaller. Other Affordable Housing is deed-restricted to eligible low- and moderate-income residents. This deed-restricted Affordable Housing has restrictions to preserve affordability for decades or in perpetuity, and is usually constructed with government subsidy or as part of government regulations.

Affordable Housing eligibility is usually based on a region’s Area Median Income (AMI), which is calculated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The AMI for Foxborough and the surrounding communities in 2019 is $113,300. Typically, households eligible for deed-restricted Affordable Housing must earn less than 80% of AMI.

Learn More:

Chapter 40b

Chapter 40B is a state statute that encourages the production of affordable housing in communities throughout Massachusetts, particularly in towns where less than 10% of the housing is affordable. In communities below the 10% minimum, Chapter 40B provides eligible developers the ability to supersede local zoning if 20-25% of units in a development are Affordable. Foxborough has reached the state goal of 10% affordable housing, so it has “safe harbor” and is able to retain a greater degree of local control over development.

Housing Production Plan Requirements

As part of Chapter 40B, the state asks every community to develop a Housing Production Plan, which is a proactive strategy for communities to plan for and guide development of housing. For some towns, an HPP can offer a path towards safe harbor. Because Foxborough already has safe harbor, an HPP is an opportunity for the town to proactively work towards identifying and meeting its housing needs. An HPP consists of the following components:

1

A housing needs and demand assessment that considers the community’s demographics, housing supply, and how well the housing meets the needs of residents.

2

An analysis of regulatory and non-regulatory constraints on affordable housing development

3

A Housing vision and goals, including a numerical annual housing production goal and the identification of specific sites where the Town will encourage residential development

4

Strategies for working towards goals and an implementation plan