"The Planning Board would like to take this issue and run with it," MacWilliams said.
The meeting on Oct. 15 included two work sessions - one on what the next step should be for affordable housing and the second to establish Planning Board work priorities - that melded into one as Planning Board members asked to work on the affordable housing issue.
The issue has been a contentious one since the majority of the selectmen voted not to continue the process to move a proposed workforce housing model to the November ballot.
"I've had the most political pressure I've ever felt in my life working on these things," Vice Chairman Dave Marshall said of the process to date, adding that despite comments made about him in town and by the media, he supports affordable housing - just not the plan proposed by the committee. "It was, frankly, a segregated project that was out in a field away from sidewalks, infrastructure and our downtowns."
Marshall suggested, instead, that the town look at in-fill options in areas like York Beach, and the York Village business district.
Selectman Dwight Bardwell said his opposition to the plan had to do with the higher end of the salary range, stating, "Who goes in those buildings is another discussion that has to happen ... The low-wage workers, those people who work in the restaurants, retail businesses, will never live here unless we have apartments to put them in."
Bardwell also said the size of the neighborhood proposed was too large for a "model" project.
Selectmen Chairman Mike Estes reiterated that the model neighborhood was only intended to be a first step.
"Do we wait for crisis situation?" he said.
Selectman Ted Little, who has served with Estes as the board's representatives on the housing committee, said the size of the project depended entirely on the site available and would have been built within the constraints of the existing growth ordinance
"We need to start to have a broad-range discussion on that topic with affordable housing a part of it," Bardwell said of the ordinance. "... We don't have affordable housing because of the growth ordinance."
Selectwoman Kinley Gregg suggested the Planning Board was bypassed during the Affordable-Workforce Housing Committee's months of effort, citing the presentation of the final draft of the proposal with margin notes as a deviation from the formal presentation of Planning Department ordinances.
MacWilliams, however, told the board, "We were not bypassed at all."
Earlier in the meeting, Community Development Director Steve Burns presented the selectmen with suggestions to begin addressing affordable housing based on a recent forum featuring a look at projects that have worked in other communities.
Marshall said those projects have had, at most, a 200-percent increase in density per lot rather than the larger ratio proposed for the Route 1 site.
Committee member Rozanna Patane said affordable housing could happen in York if density for a project was increased to a minimum of four dwelling units where one would currently be allowed.
"The basic trade-off when you talk about building affordable housing is greater density versus financial subsidy," she said. "At a certain point, if you have zero financial subsidy, you have to get very intense density."
Burns said zoning and density issues will be key factors, adding that with new developments of any kind, "It comes down to location. Where are you going to put it? Whose neighborhood is it going to go in?"
While the selectmen disagree as to the best way to address affordable housing, they agreed to have the Planning Board take the next step in the process.
"All we want to do is provide the enabling legislation" to pave the way for affordable housing, MacWilliams said. "Allow us to do it as a priority."
Looking to the May referendum, the selectmen directed the Planning Board to focus on such issues as the York Beach revitalization and the town's drainage concerns and to work on the affordable housing issue for possible inclusion on the ballot in next November.
