Housing Headlines

AMHERST --- If the town wants to maintain enough affordable housing that it can reject housing projects it does not want, officials should begin negotiations soon with the owners of the Rolling Green Apartments, Town Manager Larry Shaffer said Monday. A restriction stipulating that the 204 units at the 422 Belchertown Road complex must be "affordable" by state standards expires in 2013. (subscription only or paid archive).

DRACUT --- A housing consultant has been hired to help move forward an attempt by the Housing Authority, the town and the Community Preservation Committee to purchase a 38-unit apartment building on Mammoth Road. The town hopes to make the building totally affordable, with funding sources to include rents paid to the authority, as well as Community Preservation money and the town's general fund.

NORTH ANDOVER --- A nonprofit housing corporation expects to finalize a deal today to buy a former nursing home with plans of putting in 42 affordable apartments. The Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH) will pay $925,000 for the 2.5-acre property at 75 Park St., which includes a two-story house, a parking lot and the vacant building of The Greenery, a nursing home that closed in 2003.

SHREWSBURY --- Thanks in part to a $1 million grant from the state Department of Housing and Community Development, the Shrewsbury Housing Authority will be able to build five units of affordable family housing on land acquired from the town.

NEEDHAM --- The MBTA is hoping to develop an affordable housing complex near the Needham Heights Commuter Rail Station, which would include at least 60 units, increasing ridership and providing income through rents while helping the town reach the state's 10 percent affordable housing requirement.

CONCORD --- Developers have presented the town with a proposal to create 20 homeownership units on land which they recently purchased from the town. Six of the units would be affordable: Two plots would hold duplexes and the other two affordable units would be single-family homes, and all would be affordable to residents earning up to 80 percent of the area median income.