Falmouth Looking At Affordable Housing For Emerald House
The Town of Falmouth is looking into developing affordable housing at the Emerald House property at 67 Davisville Road.
The project is still in its early stages and is more of an idea than a tangible project, but the select board at its August 30 meeting, acting as trustees of Falmouth Affordable Housing fund, voted to approve a grant of up to $25,000 for technical assistance for the development of affordable housing at Emerald House property. The town will be working with Massachusetts Housing Partnership to get engineers on the project and do some community engagement to see what Falmouth residents think is most appropriate for that site.
“The project had not been designed yet,” said Carla Feroni, Falmouth’s housing coordinator. “What we’re currently doing is engaging with the state Mass Housing Partnership to do site feasibility. The site feasibility will determine what is the best and highest affordable housing use that is both sustainable and financially achievable for that parcel.”
The town purchased the 4.67 acres abutting the East Falmouth Elementary School in 1995. It is currently the site of the Cape Cod Cape Verdean Museum and Cultural Center. Its proximity to Route 28, a bustling commercial area, is key, meaning that residents of the proposed homes would not necessarily need to own a car, as walkability and access to public transportation are high in this area. The ability to walk children to the neighboring elementary school is also a highlight of the site, something that may appeal to young families.
“It is, in my way of thinking about it, a superb site,” said Edward Curley, chairman of the Affordable Housing Committee. “First of all, it’s a short walk up to Route 28, so it has access to a lot of services—a market, a pharmacy, that sort of thing. And also, the bus route. So people who are in affordable housing may not need to have a car. They may have a car, they may have two cars. But the fact that they don’t need to have a car and can walk to services and walk to the bus route and get to their doctor’s appointments or lawyer appointments or get to their jobs. That makes it an ideal location.”
Both Ms. Feroni and Mr. Curley made it clear that the idea of putting affordable housing at Emerald House is just that: an idea. But it looks to be an idea with potential, and once community outreach efforts begin, residents will have the opportunity to voice their opinion and share additional ideas.
“First what we would be doing would be entering into community engagement and putting out a variety of questions to the public and the neighbors to see what they would like to see on that property,” Ms. Feroni said.
They will be working with both Massachusetts Housing Partnership and CoUrbanize, a company that specializes in community engagement for development and planning.
“They use a variety of platforms to do [outreach], some of which are electronic. That information is taken in, we consider it all, and then we might start looking in one or two directions and put additional questions out there and try to narrow it down to see what the public’s preference really is.”
Ms. Feroni said they will also be bringing in engineers to consider topography and determine any building restrictions they may face. It is also not known what type of housing would be put at Emerald House—houses or condos, rentals or ownership—as community outreach has not yet begun.
“It’s very, very early,” Ms. Feroni said. “We have not even started any outreach yet. We’re expecting to start the outreach this fall.”
Although the town is still at least a few years out from seeing any real action on these ideas, Mr. Curley says the affordable housing committee is crossing its fingers.
“From the Affordable Housing Committee’s point of view, the exciting thing is the town has some land and it’s going to try to look into making it available,” he said. “With affordable housing, the only way to make housing affordable is to subsidize it in some way. It’s just so expensive to build anywhere, but particularly on Cape Cod. The fact that the town can make this land available at no effective cost to whoever develops it will help a great deal. It’s like a financial subsidy almost, because the person didn’t have to purchase the property. The idea is that there’d possibly be some land available for free basically for building affordable housing and that’s just a great thing. The more Falmouth can do that the better.”