Nine months ago, I wrote a commentary for the Sakonnet Times titled “Little Compton at the tipping point: Loving it to death?” (Dec. 28, 2023).

On January 10, 2024, a group of concerned Little Compton citizens organized an open town meeting to discuss the challenges in providing middle-class housing in our town. About 150 to 200 people came to the Community Center for that meeting. Since then, the Little Compton community has come together to make significant progress toward addressing our housing needs. It’s a start.

A group of residents organized The Commons Foundation. They sought, and are still seeking to secure, pledges of financial support from our community to help working middle class families secure permanent housing in Little Compton, and to permit financially cost-burdened citizens to stay in their homes here. (I am part of The Commons Foundation, but I do not speak officially for it. I am expressing my own views). In addition, the Little Compton Town Council took two major steps that would help the effort.

First, the council voted to change the zoning regulations to make “Auxiliary Dwelling Units” a more practical and easier part of the solution for improving housing accessibility in Little Compton.

Secondly, the council unanimously voted to create a new zoning ordinance for a category of moderately priced homes for income-qualifying families called “Attainable Housing.”

By filing an application with the planning board, people can seek to create a new “attainable” house on only 30,600 square feet of suitable residential land, provided it will have adequate water and sewer. This by no means obviates the two-acre zoning regulation. This new privilege extends only to “affordable” and “attainable” housing, as such are defined. Those new smaller lots and houses (all 1,800 square feet or smaller) would, in the future, be restricted to formulaic attainable or affordable house pricing for resale.

Also, the council encouraged the Little Compton Agriculture Conservancy Trust to investigate whether existing state laws and regulations might permit its participation in efforts to produce rental or for-sale housing for workers.

The Little Compton Housing Trust successfully acquired its first property and is planning to create its first “affordable” house, as state and federal laws so define.

The Commons Foundation is building momentum with its fund-raising, seeking  pledges adequate to support its programs. Those programs will be set forth at a second, open town meeting on housing  that will be held at the Little Compton Community Center at 10 am Saturday, Oct. 5. At that meeting, The Commons Foundation will “show us the money,” by giving its fund-raising report to date. 

 All individuals, families, and local businesses are invited to attend, and to learn how they can apply to benefit from the Foundation’s programs. Other community organizations involved with housing will give very brief status reports on their progress. They will also be available as resources to answer questions about their initiatives, needs, and opportunities. 

 All who have worked hard on addressing our housing challenges are Little Comptonites  who are trying to make our town be a village where people can afford to live and work at all levels of economic aspiration. Little Compton needs lots of things in addition to affordable and attainable housing. The town needs a gasoline and an electricity recharging station, a tavern open to all, at least one other restaurant open to all, a place for seniors, a hair salon and barber shop, some more varied retail, and repaired tennis courts and possibly pickleball courts.

 Most of all, Little Compton needs youth. Young working families will make all the difference to the future of this graying town. Many residents do not relish the prospect of Little Compton becoming yet another exclusive island of privilege for the economic elite. Do you want virtually all who work here to commute from distant and disparate places? Commuting workers’ youngsters would then be spread amongst scattered public schools. In such a future, could the Wilbur-McMahon survive and continue to be the essential community building institution.? Many of us fear it could not.

 I don’t want to continue to be part of the problem. I very much want to be part of a solution. I, for one, fear that we are indeed probably now facing the “tipping point,” meaning that last chance to have the town continue as an economically diverse, independent, and vibrant community to which we can all be proud to belong.

Peter C. Aldrich

Little Compton