“All closings have occurred and five happy families now own their own home on Block Island,” wrote Housing Board Chair Cindy Pappas to The Block Island Times.
“I have had walk-throughs with all five houses with Building Official Marc Tillson,” said Pappas during the telecommunication meeting on Tuesday, July 14 to discuss updates on the Cherry Hill Lane affordable housing project. Pappas later wrote to The Times saying “the Certificates of Occupancy were issued by Marc Tillson. He is the one who makes sure the houses are good to go.”
Cherry Hill Lane has five affordable homes located off Cooneymus Road. A lottery was held last October when 12 applicants gathered to learn who would be chosen. Shannon and Louis Marsella, Bernice Johnson, Vivian Donis and Jorge Morales, Jessica Wood, and Joe DeMatteo were selected.
The project, which was created in response to the lack of affordable housing in a town where some of the lower-priced homes hover around the $1 million mark, has been years in the making.
In a Block Island Housing Board Annual Report for July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019: “The Block Island Housing Board has spent much of Fiscal Year 2019 working
