Affordable housing possible on Old Country Road

By Leila Javitch

In an effort to bring attention to the need for affordable housing in town, a community picnic party was held recently at the Norfolk Shelter on Golf Drive. The event, appropriately titled ‘Gimme Shelter’, was to benefit the Foundation for Norfolk Living (FNL), a nonprofit organization, which is working to create affordable housing in our area. A topic much in the news in the Northwest Corner, affordable housing should not be confused with low-income housing. Consistent with the Foundation’s mission, an affordable house is a home that a family, with an income of up to 80 percent of the local median income, can purchase and maintain. In Norfolk, that means roughly a household income of $57,575 or less per year, based on 2008 state statistics. While the FNL initially planned to promote scattered home sites throughout Norfolk, it is now poised to support a cluster of homes for a 44-acre property on Old Colony Road, near the Town Garage. Through grants obtained by the town, this site is now connected to town water and sewer lines. Effective development of the Old Colony property has also been aided by a recently enacted ‘conservation development’ zoning regulation that permits higher density land usage by ‘cluster housing’ development. The partners for the Old Colony project plan to construct about 22 units on the site, which rises north of Old Colony Road and stretches to the access road to Haystack Mountain. The partnership has offered to transfer lots for six units of housing, at no cost, to the FNL. The Foundation will then construct affordable homes and will retain ownership of the land when each house is sold to a qualifying buyer. Because the FNL will retain title to the land with resale conditions placed on the homes, the properties will be kept affordable in perpetuity. The Foundation is hopeful that this project will begin soon with the help of a grant from Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a national organization which provides financial and other assistance to communities. The grant will enable the FNL to retain a project development consultant, who will facilitate project planning and construction. Once it has a construction plan, the Foundation can then begin to solicit state and foundation grants as well as individual donations to support construction. The group is also investigating the feasibility of building a net zero energy affordable home. A builder from New Hartford is eager to find a nonprofit partner, such as the FNL, to build a house that can produce as much energy as it uses over the course of a year. Since rising energy prices can have an adverse effect on a homeowner’s finances, this type of construction appears particularly valuable for an affordable house. For the project to have viability, however, the FNL needs a gift of land that has ‘solar possibilities.’ Anyone with ideas about such land, or any interested landowner, can e-mail the Foundation for Norfolk Living at fnl.norfolk@gmail.com for further information.