June 26, 2024
Carver, Mass. — Pine Tree Village, a community of 185 manufactured homes, will receive $4.4 million through the state’s Affordable Housing Development Grant to replace its aging water infrastructure, allowing residents to have safe and reliable drinking water. CDI successfully supported the community in applying for the grant.
Mass. Governor Maura Healey announced the grant awards, which aims to preserve affordable housing in the state, during an event on Thursday, June 20.
Pine Tree Village, a resident-owned community run by a volunteer board, has been struggling to maintain safe and reliable water for years due to its aging infrastructure. Their current water distribution system frequently leaks, and the drinking water periodically has higher levels of contaminants, such as iron and manganese, than what is acceptable by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).
The community raised lot rents by $25 a couple of years ago to begin some of the water infrastructure work, but there’s still a lot of work to go before everything is up to code and reliable for residents, said Irene Schnell, treasurer of the Pine Tree Village Residents Association’s board.
“An increase of any amount can be tight for many of our residents,” said Ms. Schnell, noting that the community is home to many seniors with fixed incomes and young families.
“We have people getting iron coming through in the water. The iron stains our laundry orange. People can’t water their lawns because there isn’t enough water pressure. When one person flushes a toilet, a shower will shut off. My faucet blew out the other day because of the build-up in one of the old pipes. From soup to nuts there is always something causing issues.”
The 53-acre community has been resident-owned since 2012, when CDI’s New England Resident-Owned Communities (NEROC) Program helped the residents organize and purchase the land from its previous owners.
However, purchasing the community is just the beginning of the work for the volunteer board and resident-owners of Pine Tree Village. They have years’ worth of work to fix the infrastructure that has reached the end of its useful lifespan. Costs include installing new pumps, digging up roads to replace water pipes, installing new wells and filtration system, among many others to make sure that the system is up to state and federal codes.
“We are thrilled that CDI helped us so much with the paperwork for this grant,” said Ms. Schnell. “This grant definitely helps us keep our homes affordable and will improve our quality of life.”
CDI’s NEROC Program helps manufactured-home residents form cooperative businesses and purchase their communities when they go up for sale, preserving the affordability of homes. Residents of many manufactured home communities own the homes but not the land underneath them, making them vulnerable to investors and landlords who could hike rents to unaffordable costs. CDI empowers residents to purchase their communities so they can feel safe and secure in their homes.
For media inquiries, please reach out to: Heather Holland | hholland@cdi.coop