Officials and at least one resident were encouraged by the plan, while acknowledging attention to the public housing project is long overdue.

The state Department of Housing and Community Development said it will take down the wooden porticos at Rainbow Terrace, a 136-apartment public housing complex, if construction experts say the move makes sense.

"That's what they're talking about doing," said Senate Majority Leader Fred Berry of Peabody, who hosted a morning meeting in his Statehouse office with officials from DHCD, state Rep. John Keenan, Salem Housing Authority Executive Director Carol MacGown and Salem Health Agent Joanne Scott.

The state agency will send a construction team to Rainbow Terrace today to examine the porticos and, based on those findings, will prepare a memo by tomorrow outlining its plans, Berry said. The memo is expected to say when the work will be done, which officials understood would be soon.

The DHCD, which oversees state public housing, confirmed that it is considering removing all of the porticos at the sprawling development next to the campus of Salem State College.

A tenants' representative reacted positively to the news.
"That would be great," said Frances Carson, president of the SHA Tenants Association. "That's good news they started doing something."

Carson added, however, that it is a "shame" it has taken so long to get action. She also complained about not being invited to yesterday's meeting. "I just felt I've been left out," she said.

The state agency also pledged to install new furnaces at Rainbow Terrace before the winter of 2006-'07, which means residents will have to soldier through one more winter with the old and faulty furnaces, Berry said. Under the previous construction plan, the work wasn't scheduled to be completed for two more winter seasons.

Tenants recently submitted petitions to the SHA complaining about the heating systems and about mold in their apartments.

Scott sounded the alarm last week after finding peeling lead paint at four entranceways to Rainbow Terrace apartments. She called the situation an "imminent health hazard."

Officials at the SHA, which manages Rainbow Terrace, said they have known there was lead paint there since 1998 and informed state officials about it at the time. The deleading was postponed, MacGown said, due to delays in the start of a $4 million state renovation project at Rainbow Terrace, which is set to start in February.

Berry praised officials at DHCD for their attention to this issue and declined to point the finger for past delays.

"I don't think we ought to spend time blaming," he said. "I think they know they should have had this done already."

The two Statehouse officials said they have been assured by MacGown that the state agency is speeding up its timetable for getting all of the work done at Rainbow Terrace, a 1952 development that both state and local officials agree has been neglected.

"What we really want is a safe environment for Rainbow Terrace," Berry said. "That's what we should be focused on — solutions."

"They (DHCD) definitely knows everybody is watching this," Keenan said, "and they are as committed to it as we are."