Barrington sponsors affordable home development

In a press release issued at the ground breaking on Wednesday, Barrington Town Manager Peter DeAngelis noted the challenge of building affordable homes in the community, but added that “forming partnerships working towards this goal has proven to be effective and rewarding.”

Spearheaded by the Barrington Housing Trust, the development is the first town-sponsored effort to build homes that are affordable to working families in Barrington. The Housing Board of Trustees was created in response to the Low and Moderate Income Housing Act, passed in 2004, which requires that 10 percent of the homes in all Rhode Island communities qualify as affordable.

Representatives from the Town of Barrington, West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation (WEHDC), the state Housing Resources Commission, and Rhode Island Housing break ground on new affordable housing development.

“The Barrington Housing Trust had three primary goals with this development. First, to design a project that would blend in seamlessly with the surrounding neighborhood and be a net plus esthetically, to provide sustainable, energy efficient designs with an eye toward long term affordability, and to finance the project by accessing all available State and Federal grants and subsidies. We are very pleased with the outcome,” said Steven Martin, Chairman of the Barrington Housing Trust.

Building Homes Rhode Island (BHRI), the program established to distribute the $50 million housing bond passed in 2006, granted $715,000 to the development. Other sources of funding include:

• Community Development Block Grant funds - $574,077

• Rhode Island Housing HOME funds - $100,000

• NeighborWorks America pre-development funds - $27,500

Construction is expected to be completed by the fall of 2011.