Housing Headlines

READING --- The Metropolitan Area Planning Council announced today that it has awarded the town a $27,000 grant to explore future development in selected growth areas and to make the permitting process easier for applicants.

PROVINCETOWN --- A town meeting article proposing that the town spend $1.75 million to buy three-quarters of an acre so it could be developed into 25 homes for year-round families failed to garner the two-thirds majority needed for passage, causing one of the town's longtime renters to say, "These people think they have empathy, but until you rent, you have no idea what it's like. Until you are in that position of not having a home, and you feel that panic, you don't understand."

TRURO --- Four of five selectman support bringing an article to spring town meeting that would lift a 1980s bylaw that prohibits anyone from living year-round in a unit that was converted from a cottage, cabin, motel or hotel room into a condominium. The measure is being considered to provide more affordable housing and to attract more workers to live in Truro year-round.

PROVINCETOWN --- Town meeting will be asked to consider two housing measures, one to spend $1.7 million in CPA funds to purchase land that would be used to construct six affordable homes for families. A second measure calls for the creation of a $500,000 fund that would enable the town to buy properties that could be used as year-round rentals.

LEE --- The developer who has proposed a $70 million mixed-use revitalization of the Eagle Mill complex is trying to convince state and federal officials to allow him to renovate eight mill buildings and tear down four to make way for 78 housing units. The state and national park service's initial opinion is that all 12 buildings should be preserved.

VINEYARD HAVEN --- About 30 business owners met recently to discuss what to do about the shortage of year-round housing for workers and temporary housing for summer workers. One restaurant owner described a worker from Kosovo who had to move three times over the course of last summer. "Each time his situation got worse, until he ended up sharing a floor of a house in (Oak Bluffs) with 15 people, with one bathroom and an outdoor shower. He was miserable, understandably. There's a lack of morality here that the Island can't support," the employer said.