As the city of Northfield struggles to find solutions to its housing shortage, some City Staffers and members of the City Council are proposing that the city look at a different model for creating new homes.
The city has done a substantial amount of work in helping to create affordable housing, and most of the single-family homes in Northfield would be priced at $350,000-$400,000 in today’s market. What many city officials have said is missing are the starter homes, or Workforce Housing, that are priced between $200,000 and $300,000.
Northfield Mayor Rhonda Pownell said she wants houses like that to become more of a priority.
“People call it the missing middle. Nobody builds small homes anymore. The small, cute little ramblers with the one stall garage that you see in some parts of our neighborhoods just aren’t being built. I’m hoping that we as a community can really tackle that and look at how we can move that style of housing forward and meet that need in the community.”
In an effort to bring more homes in the Workforce Housing category to Northfield, the city has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding, or an MOU, with the Northcountry Cooperative Foundation to study the idea of creating a cooperative neighborhood of manufactured, modular homes near the Southbridge area in the far Southeast section of the city.
Northfield Community Development Director Jake Reilly said modular homes are created from factory-built panels and constructed on-site. They tend to be far more energy efficient than most starter homes on the market at the moment, and they can be built at a much faster rate than through standard home construction. Reilly said they can be installed at almost any time of the year, and they look like a standard home.
The cooperative neighborhood would be a new idea for Northfield. A co-op neighborhood is typically a corporation whereby the owners do not own their units outright. Instead, each resident is a shareholder in the corporation based in part on the relative size of the unit in which they live.
Reilly said co-ops are common in other parts of the country, and they allow for plenty of individualism within home designs.
“For a basic understanding of how Co-op neighborhoods would work anybody interested in buying into the neighborhood would commit to buying the home. And then within that there’s certainly customization about what their home will look like and how it would sit on the site. That’s what happens in cooperative neighborhoods around the country when a residents association buys a park, for example, and turns it in cooperative, those residents get to choose whether they are going to be part of it and buy in.”
Northfield City Councilor Davin Sokup, who serves as the administrator for the State Senate Housing Committee, said housing is the main reason he ran for office, and he is committed to helping the city find good housing solutions for anyone that would like to live here. Because of the inflated market, he said he supports looking at innovative ideas like the modular housing co-op.
“We’re not going to have a product on the market that people here can afford unless we do something different. So, you know, that’s what I’m really interested in. Having a diverse housing market is really important, and right now, it’s close to impossible with the traditional forms of housing that we have. So just really focusing on looking at more innovative ways to help our market.”
Mayor Pownell said no decision has been made regarding the proposal because, she said, it has not yet been properly vetted.
Hanson said the MOU with Northcountry will expire in April.
Rich Larson’s full conversation with Northfield City Councilor Davin Sokup can be heard here
Library Oasis staffing hours begin next week
While the official Grand opening is still two months away, the Northfield Library Oasis has been open and running at nearly full operation for a few weeks now.
The space inside of the Northfield Community Resource Building was phased in over a few weeks this fall but is now very close to offering every service that can be found at the main Public Library downtown, while offering the convenience of location to those who live on the South side of Northfield.
The oasis is an open and bright space, surprisingly larger than one might think. Northfield Director of Library Services Natalie Draper said that she had wanted a liminal space for the library extension, so that, as a “pass through” area, people would unintentionally find themselves in a library. But the Oasis is no simple hallway. One of the walls is floor-to-ceiling windows, providing a wealth of natural light, and keeping the area from feeling like a cave. The windows look out onto a courtyard patio, with benches and chairs that look inviting, even in a cold weather month.
There are a pair of computers that are open for public use, and a collection of about 1000 books that Draper characterized as “high interest.” No books in the Oasis collection may be put on hold, but library patrons are able to request that holds from the main library be delivered to the oasis and put into an outdoor hold locker for them. The locker, positioned just outside the north door of the NCRC building, offers a fast and easy way for anyone to collect anything they would like to borrow from the Northfield Public Library.
The oasis also features a small play area very similar to the children’s area at the main library, and a multitude of bi-lingual material for Spanish speaking patrons. Printing, copying and faxing services will soon be available as well. Draper said they are simply waiting on a coin machine to be delivered and installed.
While the Oasis will not be staffed full time, it is designed to be a self-serve location, allowing for self-checkout, and even temporary library cards and computer log-in passes for those without.
Draper is very happy with the way the space has turned out, and now she said, the focus will turn to the best ways to make use of it. She has said since the planning for the Oasis began more than a year ago, despite the much smaller size, she wants it to offer the same types of programming that people will find in the main Library. She is hoping for intergenerational programs, tech seminars, possible author talks, and maybe even musical performances and outdoor movies during the warm weather months.
“We’re going to spend 2024 learning from the community,” she said. “The people who are here and the people who use this space will tell us what to do with it.”
If all goes well with this space, there could still be more to come. Draper said the success of the Oasis could very well reveal a need for more spaces like it placed throughout the Northfield Community.
Both branches of the library are closed today, but will reopen tomorrow morning. Draper said beginning next week the Oasis will be staffed Monday through Friday from 8am until noon.
A ribbon cutting is planned for the Library Oasis on February 29th. For more information about the Library Oasis, visit mynpl.org.
Rich Larson is the KYMN News Director. Contact him at rich@kymnradio.net
