Revere subcommittee hears housing production plan, rebukes an anonymous flyer; HPP tabled for further review

Revere City’s Committee of the Whole Subcommittee met Dec. 16 to consider a proposed five-year Housing Production Plan designed to guide production of dwelling units across income levels and to satisfy state affordable-housing goals. Tom Skowrowski, a city planner, presented the plan and spent much of the meeting responding to an anonymous flyer that he and several councilors said mischaracterized the proposal.

Skowrowski described the plan as a “road map” and a toolbox created over 18 months with a 12-person working group, two public meetings and an online survey of nearly 300 Revere residents. He said adoption would demonstrate a good-faith effort to meet Chapter 40B-related targets and could provide safe harbor from comprehensive-permit challenges while the plan is certified in later years. “This plan does not dismantle our zoning ordinance,” Skowrowski told the subcommittee, and he repeatedly said that any zoning changes or tax measures would require future council votes and, where required, citizen referenda.

A central thread of the meeting was rebuttal of an anonymous flyer circulating in neighborhoods. The flyer alleged the plan would eliminate minimum lot sizes, permit apartment buildings citywide, impose a property-tax surcharge and force owners to give the city a right of first refusal. Skowrowski called those claims “patently false” or mischaracterized, and he said the plan only proposes options that would require separate council authorization. He offered a concrete example for one optional tool: an opt-in right-of-first-refusal program in which the city would pay a modest sum (he used $4,000 as an illustrative figure) to buy a property owner’s option to sell to the city later; any purchase would have to follow market valuation and further approvals.

Councilors across wards said they had received many calls about the flyer and praised Skowrowski for clarifying the record, but most also said they were not ready to vote on the full package. “I’m not prepared to vote on this tonight,” Councilor Agenzio said after reading excerpts from the flyer and describing upset constituents. Councilors asked for more neighborhood-level outreach and for the administration to “dissect” the document so specific tools could be considered separately. Several councilors expressed support for particular HPP measures — for example, reusing municipal parcels and offering down-payment assistance — while raising concerns about neighborhood density, traffic and school and emergency-service impacts.

Public comment during the allotted time was broadly supportive. Clare, vice chair of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, urged the council to resist “fear-mongering” and said the plan’s adoption would not instantaneously rewrite zoning: “Housing is a human right,” she said. Other residents — including Leila Petri, Brian Rose and Matthew Terrell — shared personal stories about housing costs and urged swift action to keep teachers, health-care workers and young families in Revere.

Before the meeting ended, Council President Cogliandro said the subcommittee would table the Housing Production Plan for further consideration and keep it in committee to allow additional discussion and outreach. The transcript records the motion to table and the chair’s announcement that the HPP will be taken up at a later Committee of the Whole meeting; no roll-call vote was recorded in the transcript. The subcommittee also placed a separate motion on file ahead of an upcoming public hearing. The meeting adjourned with plans for continued review.

What’s next: The HPP remains in committee for additional council review and neighborhood engagement. Any specific zoning changes, tax measures (including adoption of the Community Preservation Act), or property-transaction programs described in the plan would require separate council votes and, where applicable, citizen referenda.