Housing Headlines

ARLINGTON --- Town officials met and heard a presentation from officials of JPI, a nationwide developer of housing. The Texas-based company has recently partnered with EA Fish to develop housing on the former Symmes Hospital site. Plans call for the site to have rental housing, with the project being converted to condos down the road.

CAMBRIDGE --- The Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline Housing Authorities have called off a lawsuit against the state, lauding the new administration's willingness to pay them the operating subsidy that had been withheld from them between 2002 to 2005. The DHCD has requested an additional $15 million to support the continuing efforts of the state's housing authorities to improve their existing units.

FRAMINGHAM --- The housing authority prepares for the grand-opening of twelve affordable one-bedroom apartments. The units are two-story townhouses meant for empty nesters whose children have left the house but who don't yet qualify for senior housing.

BOSTON --- In addition to education, legal, and legislative remedies to crackdown on unsafe lending practices, MAHA's Tom Callahan discusses the need to update the Community Reinvestment Act, to increase the lending responsibility of mortgage companies.

BOSTON --- The Executive Office for Administration and Finance has announced plans for greater support of affordable housing and job creation through the use of tax-exempt private activity bonds.

SHARON --- The second appraisal of a parcel of land planned for a 40B effort has cut its value in half, leading the developer to reassess the size of the effort.