COD: 3 Important Meetings With Affordable Housing on Agenda
COD 02806 refers Barrington residents to three meetings this week -- two tonight -- that involve affordable housing.
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There are three important town meetings this week that involve affordable housing.
1. On Monday, March 4, 2013 at 6:00 p.m. at the Town Hall the Trustees of the Spencer Trust are meeting to discuss the disposition of Trust funds. If you read Gary Morse’s letter on the Barrington Patch(2/26/13) entitled “Taking from the poor and unfortunate to give to….?” you are aware of serious questions concerning use of the money from the trust particularly as it relates to expenses to support affordable housing for non- residents of the Town.
2. The Town Council has invited Barrington state legislators to its regular meeting on March 4, 2013 at 6:30 to discuss the state Low and Moderate Income Housing Act and issues at the municipal level concerning that law. It should be very interesting. Again we refer you to Gary Morse’s letter to the Editor of the Barrington Times (Feb. 27, 2013) headed “Barrington officials make bad idea worse.”
We agree with other affected communities that the State law is overly broad in its application to municipalities. However, the question of whether the proposed subdivision on the Sowams Nursery property should be approved or denied rests solely and exclusively at the municipal level and the Planning Board in particular which has authority to grant or deny applications for construction permits.
At this meeting we will present Legislators with a packet of information we have produced concerning the 48 unit apartment rental complex proposed for the Sowams Nursery property located on Sowams Road.
3. On Friday, March 8, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. (a most curious time) at the Town Hall there will be a Public Hearing concerning possible submission, by the Town of Barrington, of a Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) for $250,000 for a range of activities involving low and moderate income housing.
In 2012 such a grant, for $125,000, was requested for the specific purpose of promoting construction by the East Bay Community Development Corporation (EBCDC) of the apartment rental complex slated for the Sowams Nursery. So far no application for a permit has been submitted by EBCDC. Yet a year ago the Town applied for funds noting in the grant proposal that they were a “partner” of EBCDC, and that the Town of Barrington was “represented on the East Bay CDC’S Board of Directors”. There are other oddities about the 2012 CDBG that warrant examination.
Your presence at one or any combination of these meetings will help our cause.
Thanks for your continued support. Public interest is really growing !
TELL A FRIEND.
COD 02806
Gary Morse
11:25 am on Monday, March 4, 2013
The biggest issue that residents should be aware of is that common sense public policy could be applied to solving Barrington's affordable housing problems, but this is not happening.
Instead, we are being force fed solutions favorable to developers, lawyers, the RI Housing regime, and ideology driven public officials.
Consider the immediate problem facing the Walker Farms homeowners. Most of the homes sold were based on a $100,000 subsidized purchase price. When the subsidy money ran out, those homes left in Walker Farms were sold at a market price that will drive next years property tax revaluation.
Many who purchased subsidized homes in Walker Farms will be asking "what happened"! Poor planning is what happened.
There are alternative solutions. But this debate is being driven by special interests and ideology, not common sense.
Why is Barrington squandering high value waterfront property when those assets might be put to better use to help defray the costs of existing affordable homeowners?
The town has to re-examine its Comprehensive Community Plan, and also, stop paying for a Town Planner to do work for self motivated developers instead of town residents.