Affordable housing sparks Vineyard fight

CHAPPAQUIDDICK -- The young couple were struggling to get by on Martha's Vineyard, living in a tent with their 2-year-old daughter, when they got the life-changing news: Through an affordable housing program, Andrea Dello Russo and Lucas Riordon had qualified to buy a small house on an acre of land -- at a price far below the island's soaring real estate values.

"It felt like winning the lottery," said Riordon, who works as a carpenter and a fisherman .

A year and a half later, the couple's dream of homeownership seems as far away as ever, blocked by 10 Chappaquiddick property owners, most of them seasonal residents of a neighborhood where three affordable homes are planned. Opponents of the new housing have gone to court, and have also taken a more direct tack: One couple, Cheryl and Robert Finkelstein , paid $287,900 last fall for an acre of land where one of the homes would have stood -- seven times the $40,000 price a moderate-income family had agreed to pay for the lot.

Vineyard property owners who are fighting the new housing have come under intense criticism. On Saturday, a neighbor found a sign in the Finkelsteins' driveway with the slogan, "Finkelstein Hall of Shame."

Affordable-housing advocates and some town officials on the Vineyard, who have strived in recent years to add housing for working-class families, say they fear the lot purchase could start a trend, spurring other property owners to head off affordable housing by offering large sums.

"It's clear this is an exercise of economic leverage, intended to squeeze out people who don't have the finances to fight," said Edgartown town counsel Ron Rappaport , who is fighting the court appeal. "We're talking about small, modest houses for people who already live here."

Homeowners who oppose the affordable housing on Chappaquiddick, a small island linked to Edgartown by a ferry, say they have been unfairly villainized. They say they treasure the wild, woodsy character of their neighborhood, and object to the density and location of the development, not its affordable nature. From the start, they said, they have tried to work out a compromise with the families who sought to live there, by finding lots elsewhere where their homes could be built.

"We all understand affordable housing is at a crisis level on the island, and something has to be done," said Cheryl Finkelstein, whose primary residence with her husband is in Marblehead. "We're trying to find a balance where everyone gets their needs met."

Finkelstein said she largely blames the hostile environment on Rappaport, who has called the opponents of affordable housing candidates for a "hall of shame." She said she is treating the placement of the sign as a hate crime, and reported the incident to Edgartown police.

The Finkelsteins, who have owned their island home for more than 30 years, say they bought the adjacent land only after a previous purchase agreement, signed by a family that had qualified for affordable housing, had expired. They say they helped find the family a comparable parcel elsewhere on Chappaquiddick before buying the property for its assessed value of $287,900.

But the problem was not so easily solved: The substitute parcel of land did not meet the requirements of the affordable-housing bylaw, and the lower-income couple, Joe Spagnuolo and Cheryl Herrick , will head to the zoning board again this month to seek another special permit for another 1-acre, affordable lot.

Located 6 miles off Cape Cod, the Vineyard is known for its rich and famous residents, but many of its 15,000 inhabitants have struggled to cope with exploding property values. The median price of homes sold on the island in 2004 was $625,000, 84 percent higher than the state median, while the median income for a Vineyard family of four was $66,000 -- 20 percent less than the statewide median, according to the Island Housing Trust and the US Census.

Progress has been made since 2000 -- more than 100 affordable homes have since been built or renovated -- but advocates say the need persists, threatening the survival of the island's working class.

On Chappaquiddick, a rural island known as "Chappy" locally, a building boom in recent years has pushed the total number of homes to 450, according to a town estimate. About 50 families are year-round residents, and many strongly support the affordable housing, saying they need new young people to strengthen their tiny community.

Chappaquiddick is not the only place on the Vineyard where lower-cost housing is meeting resistance. Construction of another group of 10 affordable homes in Edgartown, a development known as Jenney Lane, was delayed for more than two years by neighbors' appeals, and an affordable condominium complex in Vineyard Haven, also challenged by nearby homeowners, is tied up in court.

"We're seeing a trend among abutters with means to appeal, and it's discouraging because it's a trend that seems to be increasing," said Philippe Jordi , director of the Island Housing Trust, a nonprofit, affordable-housing developer.

For Vineyard native Dello Russo, 29, the struggle to find housing began four years ago when she moved back to the island after leaving for college and military service. She took a job managing a farm stand in Edgartown, and for a while found housing on the farm. But space grew tight, and Dello Russo and Riordon, their young family growing, resigned themselves to the "Vineyard shuffle," camping or staying with friends in the summer and renting in the winter, when prices decline.

"It felt like it was going to be a horrible struggle to stay here," Dello Russo said.

Their break came by way of a six-year-old zoning bylaw designed to create more affordable housing. Under the bylaw, Edgartown lots that are too small to build on under normal zoning rules may receive special building permits if the applicants meet affordable-housing requirements. An Edgartown committee approved Dello Russo and Riordon, and two other applicants, as qualified buyers of three such parcels on Chappaquiddick in 2005, and the Edgartown zoning board granted building permits for the lots on Sandy Road, a dirt lane of modest homes scattered in a scrub oak forest.

George J. Mellendick, a New Jersey doctor who opposes the new houses, said the town should have worked with neighbors. Instead, he said, officials promised site plans that were never delivered, and brushed off residents' environmental concerns.

In their court appeal, the homeowners accused the town of improperly granting the building permits. They asserted that the three new homes would compromise their health and safety, and might also disrupt endangered species.

Gordon H. Piper , a state Land Court judge, ruled against the homeowners in June, finding that Edgartown officials acted properly. Three months later, the Finkelsteins purchased the lot Spagnuolo and Herrick had planned to build on.

The Finkelsteins say they and their neighbors will try to find lots elsewhere for the two other families who planned to build on Sandy Road. But they will not drop their appeal, Cheryl Finkelstein said. "A particular kind of person chooses to live on an island off an island, in a wild area, and if you chose to live there, it's because it's the environment you wanted," she said.

Dello Russo and Riordon, whose family now includes a 10-month-old son and a 3-year-old daughter, say they feel lucky. The land bank that owns the house they hope to buy is allowing them to live there until they can move the small, gray-shingled dwelling to Sandy Road.

But the future is uncertain.

"We deserve the same opportunities these people had, even if we don't have a tenth of their money," Dello Russo said.

Jenna Russell can be reached at jrussell@globe.com.