(a) No state financial assistance shall be provided by the Commissioner of Housing for any housing or community development project or by the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development for any economic development project under any program administered by such commissioners unless the commissioner responsible for administering the program has first approved a residential antidisplacement and relocation assistance plan submitted under subsection (b) of this section by the applicant seeking such financial assistance. The Commissioner of Housing and the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development shall ensure that any such plan is properly implemented for each project for which a plan is submitted.

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(b) Any applicant seeking state financial assistance for any housing or community development project under any program administered by the Commissioner of Housing or economic development project under any program administered by the Commissioner of Economic and Community Development shall submit a residential antidisplacement and relocation assistance plan to the commissioner responsible for administering the program as part of the application for such financial assistance. The plan shall demonstrate that the project for which financial assistance is applied for will not cause the temporary or permanent displacement of persons and families residing in any single-family or multifamily residential dwelling or, if such displacement will result, that such project will cause no more displacement than is necessary to accomplish the project. If occupiable dwelling units are destroyed as a result of the project or displacement of low and moderate income households will result from the project, the plan shall further demonstrate that: (1) The applicant shall provide comparable replacement dwellings within the same municipality for the same number of occupants as could have been housed in the occupied and vacant occupiable residential dwellings that will be demolished or converted to a use other than housing for low and moderate income persons and families as a result of the project; (2) such replacement dwellings shall be designed to remain affordable to low and moderate income persons and families for ten years; (3) relocation assistance benefits shall be provided pursuant to chapter 135 for all persons displaced as a result of the project; and (4) displaced persons, to the extent practicable, who wish to remain in the same neighborhood shall be relocated within such neighborhood. As used in this subsection, “low and moderate income persons and families” means persons, families or households whose annual income is less than or equal to eighty per cent of the area median income for the area of the state in which they live, as determined by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. An applicant shall be deemed to have met the replacement requirements of this section by rehabilitation of vacant, unoccupiable units.

(c) The Commissioner of Economic and Community Development or the Commissioner of Housing may exempt an applicant from the provisions of this section upon determination that:

(1) Based on objective data, there is available in the area an adequate supply of habitable affordable housing for the full range of low and moderate income persons, or

(2) The project will dedicate at least as much total floor space to housing for low and moderate income persons and families as was contained in all the dwelling units being replaced, whether occupied or vacant, and either (A) the project will not permanently displace any person or family or (B) all of the following: (i) The sizes and purposes of the dwelling units in the project are at least as needed as the sizes and purposes of the dwelling units to be replaced; (ii) the number of very low income persons to be served in the project is not less than the number of very low income persons served by the structure to be replaced; and (iii) the persons and families to be displaced by the project will be relocated to permanent housing and will receive relocation assistance pursuant to chapter 135. As used in this subsection, “very low income persons” means persons whose annual income is less than or equal to fifty per cent of the area median income for the area of the state in which they live, as determined by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development.

(d) The Commissioner of Economic and Community Development and the Commissioner of Housing may adopt regulations, in accordance with the provisions of chapter 54, to carry out the purposes of this section. Such regulations shall define the objective data used under subdivision (1) of subsection (c) of this section to determine whether there is an adequate supply of habitable affordable housing for the full range of low and moderate income persons and families residing in the area.