Housing Headlines

WELLESLEY --- Once a destination for shoppers looking for hardware store items, groceries and cars, Linden St. celebrated the beginning of a new era earlier this month as Federal Realty had an open house for the affordable units in its 40B rental project.

NATICK --- The latest proposal for the former Natick Paperboard factory includes 138 apartments, some of which will be considered affordable, and a dozen townhouses to be sold at the market rate. Developer Barberry Homes of Framingham presented the latest plans to the Planning Board earlier this month. The project would be built under the state's Chapter 40R affordable housing regulations, which require 20 percent of the units to be rented at below market rates.

YARMOUTH --- The town's newly-formed affordable housing trust is looking to use Community Preservation Act Funds to buy up to 14 homes and then resell them at a reduced, affordable price.

SPRINGFIELD --- The city is seeking proposals from local agencies to provide "rapid re-housing" assistance to homeless families under a new federal grant program. The city plans to apply for a three-year grant totaling $423,616 to provide short-term rental assistance and services to homeless families. The aim of the program is to help the families become self-supporting within 18 months, Geraldine McCafferty, the city's deputy director of homeless and special needs housing, said Monday.

BOSTON --- A long-standing civil rights suit between Lowell public housing tenants and the city's housing authority has been settled, with the agreement calling for a program to help former residents of the Julian D. Steele housing project find good housing in neighborhoods of their choice, including in "opportunity areas" that are racially integrated. Tenants had charged they had been relocated to more racially-segregated areas of the city to make way for a new mixed-income housing community.

WAREHAM --- In an effort to get the ball rolling on affordable housing production in town, selectmen voted to eliminate the Wareham Housing Partnership, a volunteer organization that often was the first contact between the town and a Chapter 40B developer. Selectmen Bruce Savageau said, "This is not working, and we need to start all over again, in my opinion." He added that housing partnership was created to be a liaison between the selectmen and the Zoning Board of Appeals to advise selectmen on 40B proposals, but selectmen have had little contact with the Housing Partnership during his time on the board. Furthermore, he said, the partnership has not produced affordable housing in town as it was charged to do.