Housing

Housing is a human right and a basic necessity. Salem residents are facing high housing costs, displacement, and challenges as they continue to build a life in Salem. We must tackle the housing crisis with urgency and utilize every tool we have available to us. Filipe will work to implement every recommendation included in Salem’s recent housing plans. In his first term in Council, he will prioritize new tools that can be utilized to increase the availability of affordable housing in Salem. This includes passing a strong inclusionary zoning policy, streamlining permitting, and tackling outdated zoning rules that would prevent even our most cherished neighborhoods from being built today. Filipe believes we must shift our zoning mindset from zoning for buildings to zoning for people's needs and use. Affordable housing choices must be available across all of Salem so that we are an affordable City for all. Filipe will also continue his work that started in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Board and fight to enact and implement a strong condo conversion ordinance, increase tenant protections, and work with the Mayor's office to increase resources to Salem's building and health and departments to strengthen Salem's housing and code enforcement.

Infrastructure

Filipe knows what it feels like to hit a pothole in Salem and land in the auto shop, step on a broken sidewalk the wrong way and get stuck with a medical bill, and spend whole days without water thanks to water main breaks. Filipe will ensure that Salem prioritizes our sidewalks, streets, and water and sewer infrastructure. We can build while investing in our infrastructure by making sure every development in Salem seeks State funding to support rebuilding our sidewalks, streets, and aging pipes. We must make Salem accessible to all, and that means ensuring that people of all abilities can use our sidewalks, that bike paths are available and safe in all our main roadways, and that we have a repair plan that is public and ongoing, and includes a regular cadence for such repairs. We must work with our state and federal delegation to bring additional dollars to re-pave our streets and sidewalks in most dire need of repair and work on fixing our aging water pipes before there are main breaks.

Environment

Climate change is real and it is an issue that we must tackle locally. To do this, we must help reduce the number of cars on the road, invest in our waterfront resiliency, maintain our parks, and increase the number of trees throughout the city. Salem must continue to expand the Skipper program and work with our neighboring cities to expand access to transit in the North Shore. We must seek state and federal funds to invest in our waterfront. Filipe will work towards creating a connected Salem waterfront, from south Salem to the Willows, while investing in our seawalls and working towards mitigating the effects of climate change. Climate resiliency must also address extreme heat, and FIlipe will pursue strategies to make water cooling and tree canopy improvements to our parks to develop cooling areas where possible. Salem must become a greener city. We can do this by reducing the effects of emissions and, in turn, beautifying our streets helping keep them cooler. Our main City streets must be thoroughly lined with trees, and our parks must see greater investment in tree upkeep and replacement as trees die or are torn down due to extreme winds and extreme weather. Equally important, we must do our part to achieve carbon neutrality and require that every new development and major redevelopment in Salem be carbon neutral. We must get away from fossil fuels, and support a local, green economy.

Economic Development

Salem’s unemployment rate has finally lowered to pre-pandemic levels and our storefront vacancy rate is at an all-time low. Salem must work to promote more small businesses in the City. To do this we must have more options for storefronts. Filipe believes in complete neighborhoods, where people can live, work, and play. Salem must prioritize mixed use city growth that include both housing and small business opportunities. This must expand beyond downtown, investing in our core corridors and opportunity areas such as Highland Ave., Jefferson Ave., and Shetland Park. Filipe supports greater mixed use density that comes with opportunities for jobs, businesses, and affordable housing

Planning for economic growth is important to think about the future growth of our City. Filipe would work with our business, labor community, and Salem entrepreneurs to make sure that we are developing plans to attract diverse businesses that cater to local and tourist needs, and can provide quality jobs for our growing workforce. We cannot forget our workers. Salem must enact a wage theft ordinance with strong enforcement mechanisms to keep businesses accountable to their workers in the City.

Childcare

Childcare is too expensive and hard to access. Tackling our childcare crisis as a City is an economic growth strategy, a family building strategy, and an investment in our future. People cannot work without safe and affordable childcare. Children flourish in a healthy and mindful environment that fosters their creativity, play-learning, and emotional growth. Filipe knows this as a father with a young child in daycare. However, he knows not every parent in Salem has access to such reliable care. When we come together to invest in the future of our children, we come together to invest in Salem’s future. Filipe believes Salem can be a model that creates a universal child-care program where all Salem children prior to entering Pre-K can access high quality, affordable care. We can learn from cities abroad where such programs already exist and are showing great results like Vienna, Quebec, and Saarland, and look to other U.S. cities like Seattle where programs are being currently launched, and we don’t have to do this alone, we can partner with our state, business, and education leaders to build a better system.

Traffic and Parking

Salem is growing. We are a desirable community with an active tourist economy, but also a city in a region with less than reliable public transit. That means we must regularly tackle traffic and parking issues, as these will be constant in a City like ours. Filipe believes that street calming must be implemented with a data and evidence driven approach. We must ensure that our residents are all able to park in all our city streets. Salem residents conduct business in the neighborhoods they live and where they do not. Our resident permit parking rules should reflect that reality. Filipe will work to ensure all our residentially heavy streets have permanent resident only parking, and that we have designated city-wide resident only parking locations near our businesses and other important locations in the City.

This means we also have to tackle October issues with a comprehensive approach. Filipe is in favor of a balanced October parking approach that does not funnel traffic and parking through only a few areas of the City where traffic and parking is already an issue. We must set parking rules that promote parking in the areas further away from downtown while providing real-time options to transport tourists from parking areas to downtown. We must also push our state leaders to do better. As Councilor, Filipe will work with state leaders with the goal of establishing a set target of commuter options to reduce October traffic and parking. Filipe believes that it is time for Salem to conduct a master traffic plan to discover new, more efficient ways, to reconfigure traffic patterns and to develop better strategies to manage our traffic flow and parking city-wide.

Quality, not quantity

Filipe has provided answers to multiple questi