Redesigning Bradley Square

Launched with much fanfare in August at a ceremonial groundbreaking that included Gov. Deval Patrick, Bradley Square, the celebrated project of the Island Affordable Housing Fund, is foundering.

When fund executive director T. Ewell Hopkins came before the Oak Bluffs Community Preservation Committee this week to ask for four hundred thousand dollars in the name of historic preservation for the renovation of the old Denniston house, he admitted that the five million dollar-plus project is suffering from a huge funding gap.

Oak Bluffs voters already have pledged four hundred thousand dollars to Bradley Square for its affordable housing component. And now as the fund goes before Oak Bluffs to ask for more money, its leaders pose the question: does the town still support Bradley Square?

But it is the wrong question to ask. The central question is whether the fund can afford to build Bradley as it has been designed. “The economics of the project are in question,” said fund board member Patrick Ahearn at a public meeting last week.

The fund, which is suffering from a poor public image due to recent events that include its sudden default on payments to the county rental assistance program, has an opportunity under its new executive director to turn Bradley Square around by scaling it down. From the beginning the size of the project has been a problem, especially for some of the neighbors in the blue-collar neighborhood of older homes where it is located. Along the way people who questioned the size and scale of the project were marginalized as Nimbys, which is odd considering that most of them are working class or elderly people living on fixed incomes. Why would they not want to see their neighborhood revitalized? In fact the neighbors were never opposed to the redevelopment of Bradley, they just thought it was too big. In the end some token changes were made, a compromise was declared, and the neighbors threw up their hands, feeling that their concerns had fallen on so many deaf ears.

Now the housing fund is in trouble with Bradley and it faces a choice: dig in the heels and forge ahead with the plan as designed, hoping that in the end the money will work out. But that would be repeating the mistakes of the past and ignoring current economic realities. A better choice would be to go back to the drawing board, focus on building a small number of affordable apartments and possibly renovating the old Denniston house for more affordable apartment space. The plan to create office space for the NAACP is well-meaning, but can the fund afford to be so altruistic at this stage? Similarly, the idea of creating artist work space as part of the project is lovely and fits well with the burgeoning arts district up and down Dukes County avenue, but if there is no way to pay for it at this time that plan may have to be built into a second phase.

It takes courage to admit to mistakes and learn from them, and this is a moment for the leaders at the Affordable Housing Fund to seize. Redesigning Bradley Square into a project that truly fits into the eclectic neighborhood of Masonic avenue as well as into today’s budget realities would be seen as a huge step forward for the embattled nonprofit.