The Citizens' Housing and Planning Association is hosting a six-month fellowship program for local municipal leaders to better understand the state's housing landscape. This program will cover everything from funding to grant applications to zoning.

NORTH ADAMS — Two North Adams officials have been selected by the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association as part of the first group of Housing Leadership Fellows.

The current statewide cohort of 33 fellows, accepted from a pool of 145 applicants, is the first for the program. Virginia Riehl, a North Adams planning board member, and Lillian Zavatsky, a freshman North Adams city councilor, will represent Berkshire County in the group.

The six-month educational program will culminate in each fellow developing a proposed housing project.

"This is going to create value," Riehl said of the program designed to give officials a better understanding of Massachusetts' housing landscape.

"[CHAPA] really have put it together in a thoughtful way and laid it out," said Virginia Riehl, a planning board member in North Adams. "And I feel confident that we'll get more value as a result of that."

The Citizens' Housing and Planning Association is a nonprofit working to preserve housing stock and encourage more production for low to moderate-income families. The organization accomplishes this through lobbying efforts and programs, such as the Massachusetts Housing Leadership Academy.

"We heard countless times that local officials often want to create more housing options that meet the diverse needs of their communities, but don’t know where to start," said Jenna Connolly, the director of communications and events for the association.

Zavatsky and Riehl — who are founding members of the North Adams Community Housing Organization — will meet once a month on Zoom with other fellows to discuss topics like what are the causes of the housing crisis, how to navigate zoning laws and how to finance affordable housing projects.

These meetings are facilitated by experts in their respective niche of building and maintaining housing. The first Zoom session had presentations from university researchers studying the ways Massachusetts municipalities conduct zoning board meetings.

On top of the entire cohort meeting monthly, the program also has regional breakout groups that will meet monthly as well, Riehl said, something she is looking forward to.

"The people who will be in our cohort will be people who are more toward the western side of the state and who have more common problems as a result," Riehl said.

At the end of the program, each fellow will find a housing-related problem in their town, identify a possible initiative or solution and then plan how to implement that solution.

While Riehl and Zavatsky are not yet ready to commit to a final project, they said they are eager to learn more and connect with like-minded municipal officials.

"Just being able to meet other people, and see how are they using this knowledge in their own communities, and that they already have used some of this knowledge in their own communities is really fascinating," Zavatsky said.