Green Villa, a proposed 100-apartment affordable housing complex in Oak Bluffs, needs to bring more details to Island planners before it can start a full public review.
The massive housing bill passed Tuesday includes policies that explicitly give the Vineyard new ways to develop housing, allow accessory dwelling units by right in certain areas and make special allowances for towns with fluctuating populations.
Smaller in scope than other local groups, and relying largely on private donations rather than public funding, Habitat for Humanity focuses on building single-family homes for private ownership.
The Oak Bluffs select board approved $200,000 for the Southern Tier project and $75,000 for a veterans housing proposal Tuesday. Both saw rising costs associated with the pre-construction phase.
A veteran housing project planned for Bellevue avenue in Oak Bluffs could break ground by next May after getting approval from the town’s zoning board of appeals this week.
A proposal to allow cities and towns across Massachusetts to assess a fee on high-end home sales has been left out of a revamped housing bill unveiled by state lawmakers last week. But housing advocates say the idea, which has long been a priority for the Vineyard, is far from dead.
On June 4, the select board debated potential amendments to town regulations that currently only allow for one rental of affordable housing on every 1.5 acres of land – limiting the number of units town housing projects can have.
As of 2023, an affordable house for the average Island family — costing less than 30 per cent of annual income in mortgage, taxes, and insurance — should cost $400,000. But the median single-family home on the Vineyard, as of this year, costs just over $1.3 million.
