The Westport Board of Selectmen voted last week to give developers of the planned Noquochoke Village affordable housing leeway needed to help keep the project moving forward.
Board members agreed to give the project until June 2016 to prepare a purchase and sales agreement, and they voted to allow the developer to offer more of the units as affordable housing than the previous 80 percent ceiling. The developer said that providing more affordable housing helps in two ways — it puts the town closer to affordable housing goals and it provides more attractive subsidies to the developer.
Selectmen also decided to apply for Community Preservation Act money to cover as much as 10 percent of the project’s costs.
Critical to funding is access to housing credits from the state Department of Housing and Community Development.
Developer Community Builders Inc. applied for those last year but was turned down. A new application is being prepared and a company spokesman told Selectmen that odds of approval are much better the second time around.
Community Builders hopes to build 50 rental houses at the former Quinn and Perry farms off Route 177.
Of those, 30 would be two-bedroom houses, 15 would have one bedroom and five would hold three bedrooms, said Westport housing specialist Leonardi Aray.
To qualify for one of the ‘affordable’ units, a renting household would not be able to earn more than 80 percent of the town’s median income.
At a hearing last year, the audience was told that the median family income in Westport was $67,671. Noquochoke Village would accept one-person households with incomes up to $40,250 and four-person households with incomes up to $57,500.
Westport then had over 2,800 households that meet low-income guidelines.
Mr. Aray said again last week that renters would be chosen by lottery and that 70 percent of the initial round would be for people who already live in Westport.
Noquochoke Village has been debated and delayed for years — at that hearing late last year, predictions were that ground could be broken by December of 2014.
But last spring, Town Meeting voters turned thumbs down on a partnership deal between Noquochoke and Westport that called for payments to the town of $22,000 in lieu of taxes.
Audience members wanted to know if that amount would rise with inflation or stay the same “from now to the end of time.” Another said that $22,000 wouldn’t even cover two additional students in town schools.
Last week, Selectman R. Michael Sullivan said his concerns are about what he called a flawed system that focuses on providing affordable housing in place of opportunity that would enable families to make ends meet without reliance on subsidies.
Critics, some of them neighbors, have also expressed concern that the project will attract low-income tenants from out of town, and perhaps an increase in crime.
“Who will be in charge of policing this so it doesn’t turn into a project?” one resident asked.
Several selectmen countered that most of the residents will be from Westport — people who are finding it increasingly difficult to stay in town as housing prices rise.
And others say Community Builders has a reputation for building top-notch, well-run affordable developments.
Selectmen and members of the town’s Affordable Housing Trust have toured developments done by the firm in Chatham and returned with highly favorable reviews.
And Mr. Array said that one of the two former farms, 22 acres worth, will be preserved as open space with stone walls, fields and walking paths.
Massachusetts law requires that 10 percent of every community’s housing stock be affordable. Less than 4 percent of Westport’s housing stock is considered affordable.