At least six sets of fingers will be crossed in Medway on June 13, as members of the town’s affordable housing board attempt to convince their fellow residents to dedicate $430,050 to the creation of an affordable housing trust fund for the town.

The vote will be the culmination of several years of sweat, dozens of meetings and the creation of a five-year plan to help tackle the problem. It’s a strenuous effort for what might seems a less than contentious issue, given that the money the board hopes it will be allocated calls for no new taxes to be imposed, and will be taken from funds already meant to be spent on housing.

But it does suggest what a sticky issue affordable housing is for many smaller towns like Medway in the Interstate-495, MetroWest belt. The area has seen some of the strongest growth in the state in the past decade, with towns like Upton and Uxbridge growing 34 percent and 20 percent, respectively, over the past 10 years, according to data from the 2010 Census. As the towns get bigger and scramble to preserve their small, quaint character that has proven so attractive, they must contend with the state’s affordable housing law, Chapter 40B. 40B can allow developers to overrule local zoning decisions if less than 10 percent of a town’s housing stock meets affordability guidelines.

Creating A Plan

While larger communities in the MetroWest area like Framingham and Marlborough have passed their 40B threshold, most of the smaller towns are considerably below the 10 percent line. Between 4 percent and 5 percent of Medway’s housing stock is affordable, board members said. That puts it in line with towns like Sudbury (4.7 percent), Wayland (4.6 percent) and Weston (4.1 percent), according to figures obtained from the Citizens Housing and Planning Association, a nonprofit organization for affordable housing and community development activities in Massachusetts.

Medway has long recognized the need for more affordable housing, creating a local Community Preservation Fund in 2000, in the wake of the passage of a “smart growth” law which allows local communities to use a property tax surcharge to fund affordable housing, land purchases or historic preservation. Medway currently has $800,000 in its Community Preservation Fund.

“But not a penny of that’s been spent, over the ten years,” said board member Mike Heineman, an attorney at Mingace & Heineman and a Medway resident.

That’s largely because, in the absence of a dedicated trust, any expenditures from the fund have to be approved by one of the town’s semi-annual meetings, along with other municipal matters.

That makes it tough to respond quickly to needs as they present themselves, says Heineman. When the owner of an affordable unit wishes to sell, they notify the town, and if a qualified buyer cannot be found they are able to sell the property on the open market, dissolving the deed restrictions that preserve its affordability. Though the town currently has 20 affordable homeownership units, “we’ve lost two in the past few years because there hasn’t been an active trust,” Heineman said.

That’s a problem the town hopes to solve. If approved, the trust will have the power to buy and sell land and housing, raise money for itself and potentially create other programs to help preserve affordable housing, including helping current owners of affordable units with capital repairs that might otherwise force them to sell. In the short term, one of the board’s major priorities is to hire a part-time consultant who can create a list of eligible buyers for affordable units so the board can act quickly when opportunities arise.

It’s a solution a lot of smaller communities are turning to, said Jennifer Goldson of Boston-based JM Goldson Community Preservation + Planning, a housing consultant who has worked with several Massachusetts towns on developing affordable housing trusts, including Medway. As of 2009, the most recent count, 38 Massachusetts communities had created trusts, said Goldson.

“The town has a housing production plan that will help us with steps to move toward that 10 percent,” said Ann Sherry, a member of Medway’s affordable housing board and senior vice president of Charles River Bank. “The affordable housing trust is a part of that.”

A Moving Target

But though the trust can help towns act more quickly to address affordable housing needs, it’s not clear that they’re enough by themselves to push towns over the 40B threshold.

For one thing, the actual number of affordable units required under 40B increases along with the growth of the town.

“Many towns are very focused on trying to get to the 10 percent….[but] I think as we see the new Census numbers come in, that bar will be set higher,” Goldson said. “Most communities that I’ve worked with have not reached that 10 percent, and it’s sort of a moving target as the town gets developed with market-rate housing.”

There’s also a question of scale. For smaller towns, the revenue dedicated to a CPF is rarely enough to fund a sizable development by itself. Medway intends to purchase or build fewer than 10 units with its trust funds, at least in its first year. To pass the 10 percent threshold the town needs more than 200.

“The smaller communities have a tougher time – frankly, in the current real estate market it’s tough finding financing to move forward with projects of a significant scale,” said Paul Matthews, executive director of the 495/MetroWest Partnership, an economic development think tank dedicated to the region. “I think what we’re going to be seeing moving forward are smaller scale, more infill-type projects.”

That’s Medway’s plan, for now. The trust’s first year plans include an allocation of $100,000 which can be used to purchase in-fill or town land which could accommodate at most a few units.