|
|
 |
Maine
Forum Examines Success Stories Behind Dual Goals of Land Conservation and Affordable Housing
With the New England coastal region's cost of living already the 19th highest nationwide, about 60 area experts and activists gathered at a conservation-based affordable housing forum in Kittery, Maine, reports Portsmouth Herald News writer Herb Perry, to share their experiences and hear how some communities were able to achieve ''the seemingly disparate goals of conserving land and providing affordable housing.''
''We're looking for success stories that we can understand and then apply locally,'' explained Workforce Coalition of the Greater Seacoast Chairwoman Stephanye Schuyler, with Maine's Mount Desert Island and Ellsworth housing authorities executive director Terrence Kelly describing the ''co-housing'' approach and Vermont Housing and Conservation Board official Rick DeAngelis focusing on his state's legislation and smart growth.
Hindered by exorbitant land prices in coastal Maine, said Terrence Kelly, co-housing, or ''very small homes on shared land,'' has made a difference in Amherst, Massachusetts, where a ''very green'' affordable housing project features units below 1,000 square feet, but all expandable in the right circumstances.
In Vermont, a network of conservation and affordable housing groups has created 8,000 permanent affordable units since 1987, with Rick DeAngelis crediting a 1988 state law for much of the success.
''The overarching goal was to plan development to conform to historic settlement patterns of compact village and urban centers separated by rural countryside,'' he said, noting that the law gives his board 50 percent of the state property transfer tax to help build affordable housing.
''It costs (a lot of) money for these kind of developments,'' he observed, mentioning a Norwich group that preserved 110 acres while selling 15 acres to a land trust for affordable housing, with the units worth $300,000 each, but sold for $150,000.
That groundbreaking law, he added, had ''a huge impact on smart growth'' in Vermont. -- Herald News 5/9/2007
Click here to view the source article or
Click here to view the source publication.
|
|
E-mail
to a Friend
View
Printer-friendly page 
