Affordable housing on the Commons?

By Tom Killin Dalglish
Posted 4/26/18

LITTLE COMPTON — While affordable housing is off the table as a possible use for the 63-acre property just acquired by the Little Compton Agricultural Conservancy Trust, which by its charter cannot develop property it acquires, it’s very much on the minds of town leaders.

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Affordable housing on the Commons?

Posted

LITTLE COMPTON — While affordable housing is off the table as a possible use for the 63-acre property just acquired by the Little Compton Agricultural Conservancy Trust, which by its charter cannot develop property it acquires, it’s very much on the minds of town leaders. 
In the early stages of the negotiations for the deal just concluded, Town Council President Robert Mushen spoke of the “opportunity the deal afforded to conserve both agricultural land and have affordable housing right in the Commons.”
Affordable housing is identified as a goal in the town’s Comprehensive Community Plan.
As it happens, a possible site abuts the Pontes property that has just come into town hands.
“I believe the property on the corner would be a very unique opportunity for housing that’s affordable on the Commons,” said Mr. Mushen last Friday, the morning after the council meeting at which the Pontes deal was discussed.
He was referring to a four-acre lot at the corner of the Commons and Willow Avenue, that carries the street address of 187 Willow Ave., on which now sits a house, barn, and cottage. Its owners are the Pontes family, through an entity called Pinebridge Realty.
“We could purchase that to provide affordable housing opportunities. That's where I believe the affordable housing could be,” he said.
“It would be a separate transaction,” he said. “If the town were to say we’d like to approach the family [the Pontes family] with an offer for the property that is on the corner, is accessible to the street, then that is the offer that I think we should make, if the town is willing to do that.”
How to go about doing that, someone in the audience asked at last Thursday’s council meeting.
“I would suggest it not start with the town council,” Mr. Mushen said. “It could, but I would suggest that it would start with the housing trust identifying it as a target opportunity, deciding how much money was required to acquire it, and then making the case to the council to put it into the budget for it to find a way to acquire the property. We’ve not done anything like that that I’m aware of. We’ve never purchased a piece of property for the purpose of doing this.”

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