ROWLEY – If even one affordable housing is a gem in this over-heated market, Rowley has had a diamond in the rough in its downtown area for 15 years.
In 2010, as a condition of construction, the town’s Planning Commission granted Kenneth Hamilton, manager of local builder Miken LLC, a special permit to build 10 townhomes at 168-172 Main St. across Rte. 1 from the Post Office, Rowley Realty Office and Three Sweet Pea Bakery.
Unit #4 of 168 Main, a one bedroom with a living room/kitchen and one full bath in 568 square feet of living area, was supposed to be designated as affordable. That means Miken could have sold it along with the other units, but only for 20 percent less than the median home average.
Zillow currently lists that unit for sale at $241,200.
Town Planner Kirk Baker told the town’s Affordable Housing Trust a year ago that he thought the unit was being used as storage, but he had not checked on it lately. Last week, he said he thought the unit might have been rented for living quarters.
Hamilton could not be reached for comment.
The Planning Board required the builder to buy a $15,000 bond, which it did, but then it did not follow through to see if the townhome was registered on the state’s Subsidized Housing Inventory at the then Department of Housing and Community Development.
The DHCD’s successor, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC), had no record of 168 Main Street, Unit 4, in Rowley being affordable, when Baker and town counsel Yael Magen looked for it.
They got interested in the townhouse recently after 15 years when Hamilton asked for the $15,000 bond back, Magan told the SelectBoard last week and Baker told The Town Common.
The Planning Board had no intention of giving the money back. “That’s the only leverage we have,” Baker said. “Obviously it was not enough.”
The town also would not release Miken from its obligation to provide an affordable one-bedroom home. Last year, Baker explained to the Affordable Housing Trust that Rowley had 4 percent affordable housing, but the state wanted it at at least 10 percent of all its housing being considered affordable. Affordable is defined as being priced at 80 percent of the town’s median housing price.
“Every unit counts towards the 10 percent,” Baker told the affordable housing trust last September, according to the trust’s minutes.
Town Counsel Yael Magan, who has been working with the builder to get the house registered, created the affordable housing deed restriction for Unit 4 with the EOHLC’s Local Action Unit. SelectBoard chair Sheri David signed it last week, and Magan said she would file it with the state.
Magan, who could not be reached after the SelectBoard meeting, described the builder as reluctant to sell the unit at the affordable price, but did not explain if he was collecting rent for someone living there or if it was used for storage space.
The town’s Affordable Housing Trust took up the issue in 2025 when chair Charles Costello said that he didn’t know that there is an affordable unit in the center of Town near the bakery.
Baker said the unit is not registered and “we don’t have any leverage to get the company to register it.”
Vice Chair Karen Summit disagreed. She told Baker, “we do have leverage and that we have a $15,000 cash bond on that unit and that we have spoken about that in the past.“
Magan told the SelectBoard that the owner will have to hire an agent to publicize that there is another affordable unit in Rowley and conduct a lottery to sell or rent it. She said that might take months. ♦
