YARMOUTH – The Yarmouth Board of Selectmen is showing support for another affordable rental development on Route 28 in West Yarmouth.
They voted 3-2 to support a letter by the developers, Commonwealth Community Developers of Cambridge, seeking tax credit funding from the state through the Department of Housing and Community Development.
The 40-unit rental project at the current site of Yarmouth Gardens Motor Lodge would feature one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments.
“All of them will be affordable and the vast majority will be affordable for people who have incomes up to 60 percent of the area median income,” said Jim Perrine, the project developer.
“For a family of four that is like $54,000. For a single person it may be $37,000 and for other household sizes it is in between.”
Perrine believes the redevelopment is a good project that is needed in the community.
“We’ve got what I think is an attractive project,” Perrine said.
Along with the 40 units, the project would include a playground, a community room, the required 60 parking spaces, landscaping and a nearby bus shelter on Route 28.
“Our objective is for someone to be able to drive by or go into the property and not know that it’s affordable housing,” Perrine said.
The vote of support by selectmen was 3-2 with Erik Tolley and Michael Stone dissenting.
Tolley said he is an advocate of affordable housing and a big proponent of revitalization.
“What I have a hard time with is two developments – 200 bodies within a little more than a ½ mile radius of one another and what that is going to do in terms of straining our resources,” Tolley said.
Another affordable housing project, which will include 69 units, has also been proposed for the former Cavalier Motel on Route 28.
“I assume the time frame for both of these developments is going to be pretty close. They’ll probably all hit the market about the same time,” Tolley said.
“You can do traffic studies and that sort of thing but what you can’t study and what you can’t predict is the strain on the resources. It’s a tremendous amount of people in what I would consider a relatively small area on the busiest road in town.”
By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
About CapeCod.com NewsCenter
