Hi, neighbors
Burrillville opens community center for affordable, subsidized housing development, reaches 10 percent mandate for housing
BURRILLVILLE – The town became the sixth to meet the state’s minimum affordable housing requirements as Woonsocket-based NeighborWorks Blackstone River Valley put the finishing touches on $29 million Greenwood Commons, hailed as a model that smashes old stereotypes of what income-restricted neighborhoods are supposed to look like.
Accompanied by town officials, state housing advocates and lending partners, representatives of NeighborWorks celebrated Thursday by cutting a ribbon in front of the centerpiece structure of Greenwood Commons – a 1,200-square-foot Community Center for early childhood and after-school education programs.
The project includes 96 units of
two- and three-bed apartments – 75 of them in handsome, townhouse-style duplexes and triplexes on a rural, 226-acre tract off Lapham Farm Road, where the celebrants gathered. The rest are located about two miles away, in a mixed-used segment of the project in downtown Pascoag.
As she addressed some 50 spectators, Rhode Island Housing Director Barbara Fields encouraged them to take in the spectacle the new homes – a village-like scene that could easily be mistaken for a privately-financed nest of middle-class condos.
“I don’t like using the word affordable housing, but now I’m going to use it, because I’m using it for Greenridge Commons,” Fields said. “That’s what I’m talking about. To me it’s a big ‘wow.’”
Fields said the lineage of the project dates back 15 years, to a time when NeighborWorks Executive Director Joseph Garlick asked her to get in a car to see the land where he envisioned Greenwood Commons. RI Housing ended up acquiring the land for NeighborWorks, but Greenwood Commons turned out to be much more than affordable housing – it became a vibrant neighborhood that dozens of families call home.
“There are families living here celebrating holidays,” she said. “They’ll be here for Thanksgiving, family events, birthdays. It gives children a place to do their homework. It gives families a place to be together, to know they’re in a community, a place that meets their family’s budget. We simply need more of this in Rhode Island.”
Many communities – the overwhelming majority, in fact – remain non-compliant with state laws requiring them to maintain at least 10 percent of their housing stock as affordable – which means it costs no more than 30 percent of the area’s median household income. Garlick thinks he know why. He says the very term “affordable housing” is still freighted with images of the past. Convincing government officials and other community stakeholders to buy in can be a challenge.
“From years gone by, looking at those concrete high-rises, that’s people’s perception,” said Garlick. “That’s left a lasting impression on people, so we’re fighting that every day.”
In addition to Garlick and Fields, among those on hand for the celebration were Burrillville Town Councilors John Anthony Scott and Jeremy Bailey; Dorene Conlon of Bank of America; Michael Comiskey of Citizens Bank; and Ray Neirinckx of the Rhode Island Office of Housing and Community Development. Lt. Gov. Dan McK- ee’s Community Liaison Officer Paulette Hamilton also delivered a congratulatory proclamation to the councilmen for meeting the affordable housing minimums, and Fields presented them with similar recognition from Gov. Gina Raimondo.
Day-to-day oversight of the project was handled by Deputy NeighborWorks Director Christian Calderone and Project Manager Paula Rezendes. Nation Wide Construction of North Smithfield was the general contractor and O’Hearne Associates Architects, a local company, designed the buildings.
As Garlick suggested, Councilman Scott said he was apprehensive of how Greenwood Commons would turn out, but he was delighted when he strolled through with his son recently to collect food for the Boy Scouts. Scott said they discovered not just attractive new homes, but a community of warm, friendly people.
“I brought my son through, I made him knock on every door,” said Scott. “We had young kids coming up and asking us if we wanted to play and hang out with them. It was awesome. There were kids running around having a good time. A lot of people were welcoming. I actually know a few people from the town that are here. I got to step in one of the houses. They’re really nice.”
Founded more than 30 years ago, NeighborWorks is a nonprofit developer behind many affordable housing projects in North Smithfield and Woonsocket. This is the organization’s second in Burrillville, after the Clocktower Apartments in Harrisville, an innovative mill-toapartment conversion overlooking the Clear River that features a geothermal heating system.
But Garlick said the price tag for Greenridge Commons represents the organization’s costliest project to date. Like most of NeighborWorks’ predecessor developments, the financing was cobbled together from a potpourri of private and government sources over a very long period of time. In this case, the largest share, about 88 percent, came from traditional lenders, including $23 million from Bank of America, and $2 million from Citizens Bank. The balance came from various state, local and federal sources.
Greenridge Commons is located on the site of the old Garvey granite quarry and was built on a new cul de sac named after it – Garvey Ledges Lane. Most of the original tract, more than 200 acres, was conserved as open space, with the dwelling units clustered in about two dozen houses on roughly 10 percent of the land.
Burrillville now joins five other communities that have already satisfied the requirement that a tenth of all housing stock be affordable by households that meet the definition of low and moderate income. The others include Woonsocket, Central Falls, Block Island, Newport and Providence, according to RI Housing.
Woonsocket has more affordable housing than any other community in the state – 15.9 percent, slightly more than Newport – and is exceedingly resistant to accepting any more, pointing to the overwhelming majority of cities and towns it feels aren’t doing their share to provide housing for the poor.
But Fields says projects like Greenwood Commons are built to satisfy the housing demand among working families. Prospective tenants must meet the federal government’s definition of low to moderate income for the region in order to qualify – or $48,180 a year household income for a family of four.
The state has no mechanism for enforcing the minimum, though the benchmark is enshrined in two laws – the Rhode Island Comprehensive Housing Production and Rehabilitation Act and the Low and Moderate Income Housing Act.
But Fields says that meeting the minimum with a project of the caliber of Greenwood Commons is a feather in the town’s cap.
“Every community needs to house its residents and we’re there to show them how this can contribute to the community,” Fields said. “I think it’s exciting that Burrillville can stand proud to say, ‘We’ve done this.’”