Olneyville is getting an upgrade as two new commercial spaces and 36 new affordable housing units, in 14 different buildings spread throughout the neighborhood, will be developed by next summer as part of a new $10.4 million project being called Amherst Gardens.
“We are excited to be starting construction,” said Wendy Nicholas, the executive director of ONE Neighborhood Builders, formerly known as the Olneyville Housing Corporation. “Amherst Gardens has been in the works for several years, and we are delighted that all of the pieces – the properties, the designs, the construction crew, and the funding – are now all in place.
The project, Nicholas said, is part of ONE Neighborhood Builders “campaign to improve the neighborhood, block-by-block, making it a better place for families to live, to raise their children and to find employment.”
ONE Neighborhood Builders described the project as a “scattered site housing development, with the new or rehabilitated homes scattered throughout the residential core of Olneyville, primarily along the Amherst Street corridor. The development will reinforce the small residential scale of the neighborhood, provide much-needed affordable housing, and resolve long-standing areas of blight.”
Cynthia Langlykke, of ONE Neighborhood Builders, said the scattered site design of the project allows for many properties, encompassing 10 blocks of Olneyville, to be improved. “The acquisition process for a project like this never easy,” she said. “But we think it has the biggest benefit to the community.”
Nicholas added, “In addition to creating much-needed affordable housing, our goal also is to improve the whole neighborhood as a good place for everyone to live, to raise their families and to work. We tackle the deteriorated or otherwise troubled properties scattered in our community.”
The apartments will be rented to people who earn annually less than about $30,000 a year, depending on family size. The two commercial properties do not have affordability restrictions. “Neighborhood businesses will be encouraged to apply,” Langlykke said.
“On behalf of the Olneyville community, I’d like to thank ONE Neighborhood Builders for rebuilding and reimagining Amherst Street,” said City Councilwoman Sabina Matos, who represents the Olneyville neighborhood. “Quality affordable housing is paramount to a thriving urban community. This development expands our housing options, creates a safer, more vibrant neighborhood for Olneyville families, and further improves the area around one of our most important assets—William D’Abate Elementary School—and directly benefits the students who learn and play there.”
The Amherst Gardens development, slated to break ground in January and be complete by August, “will reinvigorate blighted properties into vibrant, much-needed housing for families,” said Barbara Fields, the executive director of Rhode Island Housing, which contributed more than $700,000 to the project plus an $800,000 loan. “The Amherst Gardens initiative builds upon other investments in housing, commercial development, parks and the arts – all of which are enhancing the quality of life in the Olneyville neighborhood. Amherst Gardens is a great example of the kind of transformational development that the proposed $50 million Housing Bond will support.”
The Executive Board of the Rhode Island Progressive Democrats wishes to express extreme displeasure that Hillary Clinton would name Governor Gina Raimondo as a co-chair of the Democratic convention. While this role is purely ceremonial, it indicates that some of Clinton’s advisors may consider Raimondo an acceptable figure within the national Democratic party, a sentiment that would be deeply chilling. Raimondo’s politics represent a brand of conservatism well to the right of basically anyone of prominence in the national Democratic party. Deeply unpopular in Rhode Island, Raimondo is known for her aggressive push to restrict women’s access to abortion coverage through plans sold on Rhode Island’s exchange. She is also one of the most aggressive proponents of pension cuts, which Democrats just voted to oppose in our party platform. She has been a feisty advocate of expanding fossil fuel infrastructure, and she even opposes repealing Rhode Island’s tax cuts for the rich. A former private equity executive, Raimondo epitomizes an extreme type of Wall Street politician. After the withdrawal of banker Antonio Weiss, the national party has had an informal rule against Wall Street appointees for top posts. Raimondo appears to violate that rule.
“Cape Verdeans have always seen themselves, because they are an immigrant Afro-American population, as not having an attachment to the African American experience, or at least the same attachment to the African American experience,” 
When Governor Gina Raimondo came to Burrillville Monday evening to hear the concerns of residents regarding Invenergy’s proposed $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant, the people greeted her with applause, cheers, and gifts. Over the course of the two hour meeting, the Governor assured the people that she had not just listened to them, but had truly heard them.
