The bumpy route to the construction of Chilmark’s first town-owned affordable housing development came to a close last Saturday as town selectmen hosted an open house for residents at Middle Line Road.
The open house offered the opportunity to “say thank you to a lot of people and say welcome to a lot of new people who are moving in,” said selectman Warren Doty, addressing the crowd standing in the living room of number three Oak Grove.
The Middle Line Road neighborhood has been in the works since 2004, and consists of six rental units and six homeowner sites. While most homeowners completed construction on their individual properties over the summer and are already moved in, rental tenants moved in Nov. 1.
“It just hit me this weekend that I wished everyone moved [earlier] because we could have had trick-or-treating,” said homeowner Emily Day, who moved in in July with her husband Jeff and son Matthew. “I’m looking forward to next year because . . . all the kids [there will be 13 children living in the community] can go house to house and that’s the point. It’s a neighborhood that kids can walk in.”
Construction delays postponed renter move-in by a month. Mr. Doty praised the efforts of building committee members Frank Fenner and Frank LoRusso for keeping the project on track throughout the lengthy process of completing the rental units.
The building committee was also tasked with “seeing that we got things done in a Vineyard style,” said Mr. Doty. “Sometimes, somebody’ll pick a lamp fixture or something like that that looks nice, but it doesn’t quite say Chilmark,” he said. “So [the committee] has been in charge of [deciding] ‘Now, does that look like a Chilmark light or a Boston light?’”
After the keys to the rental units had been handed over to Dukes County Regional Housing Authority administrator Terri Keech for distribution, Chilmark resident and housing committee member Andy Goldman took the floor to thank Mr. Doty and the selectmen for their commitment to the project.
“One of the things we all should remember is that the town really owns these units,” said Mr. Goldman. “They’re units that the town could be proud of, not just the architect and people on the committee.”
“These are town assets,” he finished, to applause and a call of “Hear, hear!”
The new units are, said longtime Chilmark housing committee member Jim Feiner, “awesome. I think they’re designed to last a long time. They’re bright and sunny, they’re happy.” he continued:
“I walk in here, I’m like wow, this is a nice house. As a landlord, who couldn’t be happy giving this to a tenant?”
There is a misconception and stigma associated with the phrase “affordable housing,” Mr. Feiner noted. But at its core, he said, affordable housing is simply “housing that’s not ridiculously expensive.” He concluded:
“There’s a lot of housing out there that’s not affordable that’s not as nice as this.”
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