GA Blog

3.10.10 Peabody spends $775K to keep Lynnfield Street lot as Open Space

The Peabody/Lynnfield Weekly News reports that the Peabody City Council approved the purchase of 3.9 acres of land at 182 Lynnfield Street with funding through the Community Preservation Act.

The move cost $775,000; Peabody plans to use the land for passive recreation, such as walking and picnicking, informal sporting games and perhaps community gardens. Most of the site is open grasslands ~ one corner is a wetland resource area.

Peabody was one of the first communities to opt into the CPA program, which creates a fund to preserve open space, restore historic sites and create affordable housing. In 2001, voters approved a 1% surcharge on property taxes to feed the fund, which up until 2008, was matched dollar for dollar by the state (mainly through fees on real estate transactions).

Read the entire Peabody/Lynnfield Weekly News article.

3.9.10 Lynn Receives $300,000 to Rehab Foreclosed Homes

According to The Daily Item, the City of Lynn will receive an additional $300,000 in federal funds to funds to purchase and rehabilitate foreclosed properties and fill them with renters or home owners.  The funds come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Neighborhood Stabilization Program.

Funded through the Housing Economic Recovery Act, the initiative is part of $43.4 million that was initially awarded to Massachusetts in 2009. The plan is implemented in Massachusetts by the state Department of Housing and Community Development and funds can be used by municipalities, and by for-profit and non-profit developers to purchase abandoned, vacant, or foreclosed properties at a discount and to rehabilitate or redevelop them in order to respond to rising foreclosures and falling home values.

According to state Senator Thomas McGee, “this funding will be used to rehabilitate certain foreclosed properties which will in turn help stabilize neighborhoods across Lynn.”  Lynn received $700,000 in funding last year.

Read the entire The Daily Item article.

3.4.10 Cider Hill Farm in Amesbury Awarded “Green” Grant

The Amesbury News report that Amesbury’s Cider Hill Farm received a $30,000 energy efficient grant from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture to install a new photovoltaic (PV) system, which uses solar panels made of silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. The farm currently has a 10kw PV system that consists of 56 solar panels –– the new system will be 25.6kw which will have 128 panels. These two systems will be in addition to the three wind turbines churning out energy (two shown above).

Cider Hill Farm has also received grants to make their greenhouses more energy efficient using a special film and also to turn its greenhouses into high tunnel greenhouses which sit on the soil and do not use any heat.  The farm is also looking into micro hydro-energy (energy from moving water) and geothermal heat (using the heat of the earth).\

Read the entire Amesbury News article.

3.3.10 Topsfield Rail Trail

According to the Tri-Town Transcript, Topsfield selectmen may have struck a deal that will lead to the a new rail trail on the abandoned section of railroad tracks that run from Summer Street to the Wenham town line.  Nevada-based non-profit Iron Horse Preservation Society has offered to remove all the track and ties from nearly two miles of abandoned railroad at no cost to the town.

Iron Horse is a group that extracts railroad infrastructure across the country and sells the metal for barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border.  In return, the Topsfield Rail Trail may receive a trail suitable for biking without any of the cost or effort.

Recently the Rail Trail Committee finished Phase 1 of the Rail Trail, a roughly half-mile section of roadway that runs from Washington Street to Summer Street.

Read the entire Tri-Town Transcript article.

3.1.10 South River Harborwalk in Salem, MA

The Salem Gazette reports that the South River Harborwalk in Salem, MA will be unveiled this June. The harborwalk has been in the works for at least a decade and is part of a larger effort to revitalize Salem’s waterfront. Since Mayor Kim Driscoll took office a few years ago, there’s been an additional push to move the project forward, aided by a $420,000 grant promised to the city in 2008 by the Seaport Advisory Council.

Last fall, workers began constructing the 1,100-foot harborwalk along the South River, by the Congress Street Bridge and Peabody and Lafayette streets. Officials expect the work will be done in the spring, around the same time as the abutting Peabody Street Park is finished.

The entrance of the walk will be at a small plaza on New Derby Street, near Beverly Cooperative Bank, where visitors can sit on benches. There will be flagpoles with “marine imagery” aimed at creating a higher point to establish a “visual connection to the downtown.” according to planning department director Lynn Duncan.

Read the entire Salem Gazette article.

2.23.10 Georgetown Housing Authority Tenants Organizing

The Georgetown Record reports that a new organization – the Georgetown Tenants Association at Trestle Way (featured above) – has been organized and will be hoping to seek assistance and certification from the Massachusetts Public Housing Tenants Union and the Department of Housing and Community Development, in order to work with the Georgetown Housing Authority to have better organized, more effective meetings and procedures.

Read the entire Georgetown Record article.