3/5/19 Contractors' Meeting

Notes from meeting with island contractors 3/5/19

We had a good meeting last Monday with some of the island contractors to gather their feedback on the ideas that the housing committee has come up with.

In attendance:

• John DeWitt
• Rob DeWitt
• Luther Smith
• Bill Stevens
• Leland Small
• Molly Siegel
• Ellie Kastanopoulos
• Kendra Chubbuck

New Ideas

• Mentorship for home-building–pair less experienced homebuilders with a mentor who has experience in construction. Pair that with developing lots for self-build.
• Incorporate sweat equity
• "Give people incentives to get out or improve the house"
• Build in DIY options like replacing flooring or making it easy to build an addition.
  • Depending on where the money comes from, you have to have finished flooring.
• Create a footprint plan that can be expanded
• Build houses that the homeowners would have the ability to purchase.

Information about specific houses:

• Miss Lizzie house has low ceilings, 2 bedrooms, is too small for a family.
• Coombs house: 1600 sq. ft., heats well. 3 bedroom + loft, 1 bath. Lots of room in the breezeway, could fit another bathroom downstairs.
• Original smaller ICDC houses: 1400 sq. ft. Open concept, 3 bedrooms, could use another bathroom
• Stevens': 576 sq.ft. downstairs, 900 sq.ft. total

Costs:

• Cost to build: ~$200/sq. ft. doesn't include barging, road, well, septic
• General rule of thumb for building on the island: double it
• Well: ~$8,000-$10,000 for a 200ft well, incl. fracking.
• 3-bedroom septic: $20,000 but depends on the site
• Road: depends on the site
• Largest cost burdens to building on the island: labor and anything that comes on a barge. Milling your own lumber can save but it's mostly spruce which is difficult to deal with.

Parsonage

• "Who's the lucky landlord?"
• The windows are old originals–change them, insulate, put in a new septic.
• Bump it out and do the insulation on the outside. You can get R-10 with 2 inches of insulation (what kind?)
• The basement is open.
• Still $200/sq.ft to remodel. It's just as costly as building new.
• 4 apartments is very dense–maybe make it into 2 instead of 4?
• "It's cheaper to insulate what you already have."
• Probably need more gravel on the road. Does state code mandate that it has to be accessible?

Septic

• State building code: you need at least 2 bedroom septic per unit regardless of how many bedrooms.
• The problem is getting rid of water. Not just toilet water but gray water. As long as you have running water, you need to have a septic system to get rid of it. Even if you just have a composting toilet you still have to have a way to get rid of the gray water.

Coombs Mtn.

• Coomb's Mtn. seems to be the most accessible option because it already has a road.
• Road already built–you'd just have to put gravel on top of it.
• Are the wells on Coombs any good? ICDC may have the results.
• The trailer on Coomb's Mtn.–is there a well? Bob Gerber's maps show one but people didn't seem to think there was one. There's a road & electric. May be the easiest lot to open up for multiple houses.

Misc. Concerns

• "You never know who you're going to get in these houses."
• "A lot of the places and ways I've lived on the island were illegal and would not apply to these housing grants."
• No one wants to sell property, and the town doesn't have much land available.
• The land that is available isn't the most accessible
• Duplex concerns: zoning & septic. You need a big enough footprint. Will the neighbors get along?
• Building density: depends on what the use is. You can get greater density for seasonal housing than for year-round housing.