Posted on May 20, 2016
The view from the Whittier School down onto the Darlington Street vacant lot.
DORCHESTER --- On a sunny weekday morning this month, Mayor Marty Walsh stood before a small crowd at a housing construction site on Darlington Street and recalled a day when this part of the city didn’t look so good.
“I remember coming here once and all you could see was trash, computer monitors and dead animals,” he said. “To do what we’re doing here now takes a lot of great people and neighborhood partners. This is not easy to do.”
What Mayor Walsh was celebrating on May 10 along with city and state leaders and neighborhood residents was the start of construction of Whittier Lyndhurst Washington Homes (WLW), the latest effort by the Codman Square Neighborhood Development Corporation (CSNDC) to create affordable housing and revitalize neighborhoods near the Fairmount Commuter Rail.
WLW Homes involves the creation of 30 new affordable apartments and the preservation of 14 units The new units will be built at three sites: the vacant lot where Mayor Walsh spoke (three buildings, 13 units), a vacant lot at 472 Washington Street (eight units) and the acquisition and rehabilitation of a distressed property at 4-6 Lyndhurst (nine units).
In addition, 14 state public housing units at the former Whittier School next to the Darlington Street vacant lot will be acquired and rehabilitated by CSNDC.
WLW is being financed with state housing and historic tax credits, and with federal low-income housing tax credits awarded by the state Dept. of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).
DHCD provided additional funding through the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Housing Innovation Fund and the Commercial Area Transit Node Housing Program. The City of Boston is supporting WLW with federal HOME funds and its Neighborhood Housing Trust. Bank of America is providing over $12 million in construction financing. RBC Capital Markets was the tax credit investor.
The Massachusetts Housing Partnership (MHP) has committed $3 million in long-term financing, continuing its longtime support of CSNDC’s efforts to create affordable housing in this part of Dorchester.
MHP has now provided CSNDC with 10 loans totaling over $17 million for the financing of 340 apartments. In this effort, MHP also worked with CSNDC and the state to figure out how the Whittier School could be moved from state public housing to being owned and managed by CSNDC.
“We’re proud of our longtime relationship with Codman Square NDC, its executive director, Gail Latimore and all the things they’ve done for the neighborhood,” said Judy Jacobson, MHP’s deputy director.
“You've used just about every tool in our toolbox - long-term permanent financing, inexpensive money from the philanthropic Home Funders Collaborative so that you can serve extremely low-income families, our Housing RAP loan so you don't have to tie up cash in reserves that are rarely needed; and a working capital line of credit so you'd have some cash, just like a for-profit developer.”
For more information about this development and MHP’s financing options, contact MHP Senior Loan Officer Amanda Roe at aroe@mhp.net.