Housing Headlines

MANCHESTER --- The developer who was working with the town on a 157-unit housing proposal has stepped away from negotiations and now plans to apply to the state for a project eligibility letter that would allow it to come back to the town to seek a Ch. 40B comprehensive permit to build 136 mixed-income apartments. Developer Geoffrey Engler ended so-called "friendly 40B" negotiations after the town wouldn't agree to give up its option to claim safe harbor from 40B applications if it satisfied one of the state requirements that would allow it to do so.

BOSTON --- In an effort to address racial disparities and increase homeownership, the City of Boston is shifting $250,000 from the police department's overtime budget into a $325,000 matching grant program to help lower- and middle-income residents buy homes in the city. The grant would provide up to $5,000 to qualifying “first-generation” buyers who put up $2,500 of their own. The program is part of a larger homeownership effort by the city and the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, and includes MHP's ONE+Boston program.

In the Boston Sunday Globe, Andrew DeFranza of the nonprofit Harborlight Community Partners & state Rep. Shawn C. Dooley debated the state's new law that requires communities serviced by the MBTA to allow multifamily near transit stations. On the yes side, DeFranza wrote that the new requirement eases one of the zoning barriers that prevent people from pursuing opportunity by being able to live in the communities they choose while Dooley argued the law is "nothing more than a ploy by big developers to maximize profits and run roughshod over local zoning."

CHARLESTOWN --- An assisted living facility that the the owner says is "a distressed asset" is hoping to partner with a resident services organization to revitalize the property into 48 affordable senior housing apartments. Michael Mattos of Affordable Housing Services Collaborative hopes to partner with Peabody Resident Services to revitalize the Zelma Lacey property, which right now has only 42 of its 66 units occupied.

MANCHESTER --- In an effort to delay a a 157-unit mixed-income housing development it doesn't want, residents of Manchester have raised $1.5 million to support the North Shore Community Development Corporation's bid to acquire 29 apartments for $3.9 million. If the nonprofit is successful in acquiring the property and making the apartments permanently affordable, the town will get credit from the state for adding affordable housing and gain a two-year safe harbor from developers attempting to build with Ch. 40B permits.

A new state law that would require communities served by public transit to create at least one zoning district within a half mile of a train, bus or ferry station is getting mixed reviews along the South Shore, even though failure to do it could result in losing eligibility for other state grant programs. "I wouldn't mind more development, people have to live somewhere," said Steve Smith who lives near the Halifax station on an unpaved road. "I'm just not sure how much developable land there is left in Halifax to do that."