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Newton Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership

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Purpose and Mission

The Newton Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership's ("Partnership") mission is to foster, support, and advocate for the preservation and creation of housing to promote an economically diverse Newton and affirmatively further fair housing in partnership with the City.

The Partnership is an advisory body to the Mayor, City Council, Housing Trust, Boards, Commissions, Committees, and Staff on fair housing as well as Newton's housing needs, policies, programs, zoning, and specific proposals. 

To read more about the Partnership's Purpose, Roles, and Structure, please click here. 

Meetings

The Partnership meets on the fourth Tuesday of each month unless otherwise posted. 

The next meeting is on Monday, November 24, 2025 beginning at 5 p.m. Click here to view the agenda.

Documents

Roles and Responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities of the Partnership may include the following: 

  • Advise and advocate for the preservation and creation of affordable housing throughout Newton, in connection with strategies, policies, programs, zoning, and other ordinances affecting housing, funding efforts, and plans.
  • Assist and advise the City to help assure that fair housing objectives are identified and integrated across City departments.
  • Encourage the strategic, effective, and efficient use of City administered funds, resources, and tools for preserving and creating affordable housing.
  • Maintain active coordination with other Boards and Committees, such as the Newton Affordable  Housing Trust, Newton Housing Authority, Commission on Disability, Human Rights Commission, as well as local and regional housing organizations. 
  • Establish goals and strategies to further the mission and purpose of the Partnership. 
  • Educate and inform Newton residents, businesses, those doing business in the City, and property owners about the importance of preservation and creation of affordable housing in collaboration with City staff and other advisory boards and commissions. 
  • Provide programming and education to Newton community regarding fair housing. 
  • Promote, educate, and advocate for fair housing in the community. 
  • Undertake project reviews for forthcoming housing development projects. In carrying out this project review function, the Partnership seeks to promote projects that will create and preserve housing that is affordable and accessible. The Partnerships Project Review Criteria is available to communicate to developers the priorities of the Partnership to create housing in Newton. 
  • If the Partnership has sufficient capacity, when requested by City elected officials or staff or by developers, provide review and guidance on developer's affordable housing financial projections for proposed affordable housing projects. 
  • Review and comment on the housing-related aspects of the Newton Comprehensive Plan and Newton Consolidated Plan following presentations by staff of the relevant sections. 
  • Provide regular updates to Partnership activities and action on the City's website. 

Members

  • Marva Serotkin, Chair: Marva Serotkin was President of The Boston Home from 1997-2017, which received national recognition for innovative services for people with disabilities. Most recently, she acted as co-developer of Harmon Apartments, a mixed-income, accessible, affordable apartment complex in Boston. Prior to her work at The Boston Home, she was the CEO of the Shattuck Hospital and Cura VNA in Plymouth. Currently she serves on the boards of Social Venture Partners, Commonwealth Land Trust, 3iHousing of Maine, and Harmon Apartments. She received her BA from Boston University and MPH from Yale University. 
  • David Rockwell, Secretary: David Rockwell is retired from 25 years with the lending team at the Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP), and was the Director of Lending for the last 18 of those years, overseeing a lending team focused on permanent first mortgage financing for affordable and mixed-income multi-family rental housing across Massachusetts. He has a masters in City and Regional Planning from Harvard University, and his career includes 15 years in commercial real estate lending, development work with a community land trust in Roxbury, and journalism with a daily newspaper. He and his multi-generational family live in Newton Highlands. 
  • Bryan Decker: Bryan Decker is a union and employee attorney who has practiced law in the Boston area since the early 1990s. Bryan represents unions and employees in all aspects of labor and employment law.  In addition to his work as an advocate for workers, Bryan has served on the boards of a number of non-profits.  Prior to moving to Newton, Bryan was a resident of Brookline, and served as a member of that town’s Bicycle Advisory Committee.  Since moving to Newton in 2018, Bryan has come to believe that the creation of more housing in general, and more affordable housing in particular, is the most critical issue facing Newton as we strive to keep the City vibrant and as we seek to address the needs caused by climate change.
  • Ann Houston: For over 40 years, Ann Houston has worked in affordable housing and community development, building affordable and mixed income housing along with amenities that create great neighborhoods, nurturing strong non-profit organizations, and engaging in state and local policy work.  Ann served as the CEO of The Neighborhood Developers, a Community development corporation serving Chelsea, Revere and Everett, and was the founding CEO of Opportunity Communities, providing capacity-building support to non-profit community developers. Ann has served on numerous local, state, and national boards and committees.  Most recently, she was the Housing Fellow for the Eastern Bank Foundation and an adjunct professor at Boston College. She earned a master’s in real estate development at MIT’s Center for Real Estate, and a Bachelors in Community Planning at UMass Boston’s Center for Public and Community Service. A Newton resident since 1992, Ann also chairs the Newton Affordable Housing Trust.
  • Michael Lozano: Michael Lozano, Vice President of Development, joined Trinity in 2016 and oversees development projects in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He manages the development team of professionals and consultants through the site acquisition, design, financing, construction, and marketing phases of each project. Mr. Lozano has extensive experience with complex financial transactions, particularly those utilizing Low Income Housing Tax Credits and Historic Tax Credits. A few of his recently completed projects include the redevelopment of the Washington Village public housing site in Norwalk, CT into a new 273-unit mixed-income transit-oriented development renamed Soundview Landing and the transformation of the former Worcester County Courthouse into 118-units of new mixed-income apartments.
  • Grace Mitchell: Grace Mitchell is a technical product and project manager with over twenty years of experience in civic technology and a particular passion for housing. She has worked at Housing Navigator MA and the City of Boston's Mayor's Office of Housing. Grace holds a Master's of Public Policy from the University of Texas at Austin's LBJ School and a BA from Reed College. Grace originally hails from Oregon; she and her family have lived in Newton since 2023. 
  • Esther Schlorholtz: Esther Schlorholtz works with groups engaged in affordable housing, community investment and economic development. She is former chair and a long-time member of the Newton Fair Housing Committee, by mayoral appointment. She is vice president of the Franklin Square House Foundation which provides childcare and shelter funding that supports women and their children in Greater Boston. She serves on 2Life Communities’ real estate development and finance committees, focusing on affordable housing solutions for senior adults. She advises other nonprofit groups on affordable housing and economic development matters. Ms. Schlorholtz has more than forty years of community development experience in banking, nonprofit, and government. 
  • Nicole Stewart: Nicole Stewart is currently the Executive Director for Boston CASA, a nonprofit that trains and supports community volunteers to serve as Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASAs) for children who have suffered from abuse and neglect. With more than 25 years of combined experience in school administration and executive leadership in nonprofits, Nicole has dedicated her career to positively impacting the lives of vulnerable children and communities. Nicole serves on the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) Advisory Board. 
  • Steve West: Steve West is a retired affordable housing professional. He spent fifteen years with Boston Financial Investment Management, a syndicator of Low Income Housing Tax Credits, where he worked in capital transactions. Prior to that he was with The Community Builders, a Boston-based non-profit developer and manager of affordable rental housing, and earlier was with Self Help Credit Union, a North Carolina affordable housing lender. His twenty-five years in the affordable housing field were preceded by fifteen years in the construction industry. He has a Masters in Regional Planning from UNC Chapel Hill and a BA from Columbia University. He has lived in Newton since 2001. 

Alternate Members

  • Judy Korzenowski 
  • Tatjana Meschede: Dr. Meschede, Associate Director of the Heller School's Institute for Economic and Racial Equity at Brandeis University, is a locally and nationally known researcher on housing, homelessness, and racial economic disparity. She has presented and written widely on racial wealth disparities and was selected as Visiting Scholar at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank where she analyzed local data on race and ethnic wealth holdings. A skilled evaluation researcher, Dr. Meschede partners with local and national organizations to bring together different stakeholder groups to improve projects and policies. She is the author of numerous reports and publications of those who find themselves without a home. She received her PhD in Public Policy from the University of Massachusetts. 

Formation of the Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership and Consolidation of the Newton Housing Partnership with the Fair Housing Committee

Members of the Newton Housing Partnership (NHP) and the Fair Housing Committee (FHC) voted in the spring of 2025 to consolidate their efforts into one advisory board, the Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership ("the Partnership").  

This decision represents the careful review by each group of its respective purpose, with the goal of determining how each group fits into the larger ecosystem of citizen advisory boards working with the City to create, preserve, and maintain affordable housing. Overall, the Partnership is cultivating a balanced reputation for Newton as a community that is at once welcoming to new residents, and as a community that will advocate for developers building outstanding and deeply affordable housing.

Embedding the concept of “fair housing” into these efforts through a consolidation of the FHC and the NHP strengthens the mission of resident participation in policy formation and activism into a cohesive and resilient program that will combat the roll-back of housing rights by the current federal regime and indeed outlast it.

The NHP webpage is archived here, and its meeting materials are here.
The FHC webpage is archived here, and its meeting materials are here.

Contact

For questions about the Fair and Affordable Housing Partnership, contact Shaylyn Davis-Iannaco at sdavis@newtonma.gov.