By Mary Close Oppenheimer
An important question we must all ask ourselves is, “What kind of town do we want Salisbury to be now and for future generations?” Do we want a town with a healthy mix of children, young and middle-aged adults and seniors? Do we want local businesses, schools and social service agencies to be able to function and thrive? Do we want to hold onto the character of our town, which for 200 years has been a diverse and vibrant community? If you answer yes to these questions, it’s important to understand that the high cost of housing is threatening the way of life we all cherish.
Last week’s article outlined the many disturbing facts about where our town is headed if we do not significantly increase our number of affordable residences. The 2010 report “Preserving Salisbury’s Vitality: Housing for Tomorrow” on the Town website states that we need an additional 200 units of affordable housing by 2020 if we are to be a healthy, diverse, well functioning community.
There are many things we can do to improve the situation.
We can help create more affordable homes for purchase by volunteering for and/or giving tax-deductible donations to the Salisbury Housing Trust or Habitat for Humanity.
We can volunteer for and/or give tax-deductible donations to the Salisbury Housing Committee in its mission to create more affordable rental apartments.
We can make a tax-deductible donation of homes or land for affordable housing now or in our wills.
We can add accessory apartments to our homes and rent them out in a price range that local residents can afford.
We can rent out spare apartments or houses we own for less than the market rate and help a friend or relative stay in town.
We can support zoning changes that make it easier to build affordable housing. There are many specific descriptions and suggestions in the town’s Affordable Housing Report.
While these steps can help, they can only add a couple of residences each year. The only way we can truly address our current and future needs is to create a significant number of new, affordable housing units. This takes money… lots of it. Twenty newly constructed units (10% of our need) would cost approximately $6,000,000.
Many people like the idea of raising local money for small projects scattered around town rather than building a larger project. The sad reality is that this approach takes an inordinate amount of time, adds to the costs and is virtually never successfully accomplished in any decent numbers. Of the 426 affordable housing units dispersed throughout our 8-town region, fewer than 10% were on small, scattered sites. Government funds for some or all of the costs were relied on for 92.25%.
The two elements critical for success are affordable land (ideally on town water and sewer) and neighbors willing to embrace new, high quality homes in their neighborhood. As proven by residents currently living in affordable housing, the people who will be most eager to move into the housing we create are the people who are already living here or have a connection to our town through their work or families. They are not “THEM” - They are “US”!
This article was published in The Lakeville Journal on 6/30/16.