Construction well underway for Perry Street affordable homes

SALISBURY — Concrete foundations of two new affordable homes have been dug and poured on Perry Street, and Salisbury Affordable Housing Commission Chair Jennifer Kronholm Clark is thrilled at the progress.

“It’s really exciting,” she said in a recent interview. “We haven’t had a big construction project like this in a decade at least.”

Kronholm Clark, who also vice chairs the Salisbury Housing Trust, a non-profit that has overseen the addition of 17 affordable home opportunities to Salisbury since 2002, explained that the next steps are relatively straightforward.

The new units are modular homes, meaning they are mostly constructed off-site at a manufacturing facility, then quickly assembled on top of the foundation.

She said that each home will be delivered to town in four pieces, for a total of eight, between April 1 and 3. The units will be staged temporarily at the Lakeville Town Grove until their installation on the 3rd.

The upper portion of Perry Street will be closed for most of the day on the 3rd as the homes are put in place, in a process involving a “really huge crane” that Kronholm Clark promised will be “dramatic.”

Once in the ground, she expects the remainder of the work to be completed quickly and the homes to be move-in ready sometime in May.

The 1,500 square foot, 3 bed and 2 bath houses will be available for purchase only at a price range between $250,000 and $280,000 which includes a $25,000 forgivable down payment assistance loan.

Eligibility requirements for ownership are that the buyer be a first-time homeowner, and that the total gross household income is below the area median income: $80,000 for one person, $91,400 for two, $102,800 for three, and $114,200 for four. The Trust will prioritize those in need of a three-bedroom home.

An information session detailing the application and purchase process will be hosted on April 10 at 7:30 p.m. on Zoom.

The Trust asks that those looking to purchase a home complete a pre-application form by April 15, which may be received by emailing Lindsay Larson at LindsayL@thehousingcollective.org.

The completion of the Perry Street houses will mark a major milestone for the Salisbury Housing Trust, which has been discussing developing affordable housing on the lot since 2013. The site was formerly home to a dry-cleaning service who vacated the property in the 1990s and left “an environmental mess,” according to Kronholm Clark. The land was then transferred to the town, who approached the Trust about developing affordable housing on the site in order to secure a state-funded grant to clean it up.

She said that the neighbors were congenial and supportive of the plan, with many preferring to see homes on the property rather than an empty brownfield. Kronholm Clark said that she hopes the installation of these new homes demonstrates to the community that affordable housing is a positive presence on Salisbury’s landscape.

A 2024 report from Torrington-based non-profit Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation found that the median home value in Salisbury grew from $473,369 to $807,848 between 2017 and 2024.

Ensuring that there are homes available far below that margin is paramount to maintaining the region’s younger workforce, she said.

“It’s important to have these options so that we don’t just become, you know, a community with a bunch of second homeowners,” she maintained.

The Perry Street project is part of a broader regional effort organized by the Litchfield County Center for Housing Opportunity to bring similar modular homes to several other locations in the county. Two more homes within the program are planned for installation in Salisbury on Undermountain Road, a proposal that has seen some controversy but which Kronholm Clark is optimistic will see broken ground soon after.