Is a motel room affordable housing? This city is arguing yes.

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Is a motel room affordable housing? This city is arguing yes.

IN A CASE that shows the lengths communities will go to stop a housing project from getting built, Methuen officials are trying to leverage the state’s use of a Days Inn motel as an emergency shelter for homeless families to block a development proposal to build 300 rental units on a parcel that straddles the city’s border with neighboring Dracut.  It’s a novel wrinkle in the longstanding antipathy of many Massachusetts communities toward new ho…