A group of volunteer woodworkers built a custom bus stop for the Ferncliff Village affordable housing project. Tad Sooter has the story….

Island woodworkers donate new Ferncliff Village bus stop
By Tad Sooter

It’s not often a school bus shelter can elicit awe. The new wooden shelter at the Ferncliff Village affordable housing development isn’t an average bus stop.

“It’s pretty spectacular,” Bill Luria of the Bainbridge Housing Resources Board said of the stout but elegant fir shelter. “It’s a pretty massive structure.”

Luria is just as impressed with the shelter’s builders.

Members of the non-profit Bainbridge Community Woodshop and employees of Salisbury Woodworking contributed about 200 hours to the project on Ferncliff Avenue, which wrapped up in late November.
 The Ferncliff shelter was the latest community service effort completed by Community Woodshop volunteers, who regularly donate their time and expertise to assist fellow non-profits. Kilbane said the service projects meet a need on the island. They also help the Community Woodshop raise its profile while it pursues its overarching goal of creating a shared workshop on Bainbridge.

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Looks that that pair of ultra-modern prefab homes have finally found a home.

After getting the cold shoulder from farmers on Day Road and the neighborhood around the Johnson Farm, affordable housing advocates decided to tuck the stackable units behind some duplexes on a quiet Winslow street.

Read HERE for the latest.

And read HERE and HERE for the earlier chapters in the saga.

Efforts to create and preserve lower cost housing options on the island suffered two recent setbacks.

First, the City Council decided to de-fund the city’s Housing Trust Fund, which supports local affordable housing projects.

Then came news that the Housing Resources Board was delaying the start of the Ferncliff community land trust project by one year. Later phases will likely be delayed a three or more years.