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Select Board and Snowsville Community Trust spar over repayment terms, duration of $50,000 town appropriation
Summary
Select Board members and Snowsville Community Trust representatives debated revisions to the agreement tied to a $50,000 voter-approved appropriation, including a tax-repayment alternative, whether to label units "affordable," and whether the covenant should run 20 or 50 years. The board will draft a counterproposal and vote at a future meeting.
Select Board members spent more than an hour questioning Snowsville Community Trust representatives about proposed changes to the town’s agreement for a $50,000 appropriation voted at a prior town meeting.
“One of the biggest ones is this idea of creating an alternative path by which we sort of satisfy and get the $50,000 … keeping track of property tax additional property tax revenue that’s generated,” Jackson Evans, speaking for the Trust, told the board, describing a plan to count incremental property-tax revenue from the rehabilitated property toward satisfaction of the appropriation. Evans said the Trust expects to submit outstanding environmental-review materials in July to the state as part of HUD-required reviews and anticipates closing on 38 Farnsworth Road in late August or early September.
Board members focused on three core disputes: whether the project should be described as "affordable housing," what happens if the property is sold or its use changes, and how long the land-use covenant should run. The Trust laid out a planned unit mix of four apartments — “1 ADA accessible single-bedroom, 1 three-bedroom, and 2 two-bedroom” — and said it is targeting ‘missing-middle’ housing rather than pursuing affordable-housing tax credits.
Select Board member Paul Kendall pressed the Trust on the repayment and duration terms. He said the original nonbinding town resolution envisioned longer protections and asked why the Trust now proposes a shorter term tied to tax revenue. Other board members raised precedent and oversight concerns if town funds could facilitate a commercial use or be structured in ways that make future financing difficult.
Jackson Evans said the Trust added clearer termination provisions and a five-year completion trigger tied to the recording of the deed; he also described language to ensure covenants are recorded in land records to reduce title uncertainty. After discussion, the board agreed to draft a Select Board counterproposal and bring it back for a vote at the next meeting so members can review and refine specific contract language.
The board did not take a final vote on the Trust’s revised agreement; members instead asked staff to prepare a draft response that the board will consider at the following meeting.
