Housing Headlines

WORCESTER --- Calling the public housing system a "well-intentioned failure", Worcester Housing Authority Executive Director Raymond Mariano is hoping to wean tenants off public housing with a proposal that includes requiring all able-bodied residents younger than 50 to go to work or to attend school full time to continue to receive housing benefits.

CHILMARK --- A school teacher, a town employee, a medic, a nurse's aid and children - lots of children - are about to move into the town's first town-owned affordable housing project. Known as Middle Line Road, workers are putting the finishing touches on the first phase, which features three duplexes with two rental apartments each. The second phase features six one-acre homesites with deed covenants to ensure that they stay permanently affordable. The owners of these sites will build their own homes and lease the land from the town on a long-term basis.

SPRINGFIELD --- The $10 million renovation of 396 units of public housing is proceeding as planned, with both the Duggan Park and Reed Village receiving badly needed repairs that will benefit the tenants and the city, according to William Abrashkin, executive director of the Springfield Housing Authority.

LENOX --- The Community Development Corp. of South Berkshire has posted plans to develop 22 affordable condominiums on historic land. According to recent news reports, selectmen have OK'd a plan to have the town take out a loan to purchase the property but the CDC still has to obtain public and private financing in order to move the $20 million development forward.

MELROSE --- An Atlanta-based developer recently broke ground on the first phase of the conversion of a historic mill into rental housing. Wood Partners intend to build 300 apartments on the site of the former Boston Rubber Shoe Company Mill site. Out of the 300 units, 30 units will be designated as affordable. The first phase of the project is targeted for completion in February 2013.

HOLLISTON --- Holliston officials are weighing whether to mount a fourth legal challenge to plans to build 200 mixed-income condominums on land still partially contaminated by decades of illegal dumping. In 2006, the Holliston Zoning Board of Appeals denied a developer's plan to build 200 condominiums (53 affordable) with a comprehensive permit (40B) but that decision has been overturned by the state's housing appeals committee, the state's land court and most recenlty, the state' appeals court.