Housing Headlines

GLOUCESTER --- A popular downtown restaurant that in recent years has become a vacant eyesore is about to face the wrecking ball as it will be redeveloped by the North Shore Community Development Corp into 30 units of affordable rental housing. "This is wonderful noise to my ears," said Mayor Sefatia Romeo Theken, who said she is hopeful of seeing more housing downtown, such as condos as the Cape Ann YMCA site on Middle Street.

NEWTON --- The Newton City Council has set March 3 (Super Tuesday) as the date when Newton voters will decide on the fate of Northland's 800-unit mixed-use development, a project OK'd by the City Council last year but challenged when opponents collected enough signatures to put the project before the voters. Opponents of the project had wanted April 7, saying March is too soon to educate voters on the issue. Opponents have also filed complaints against Mayor Ruthanne Fuller for using city resources to influence the outcome and the City Council for allegedly violating the Open Meeting Law when it held a meeting in January about how to proceed after the successful signature drive.

PROVINCETOWN --- Needing more funds to fully convert a bankrupt 28-unit former time-share property into year-round market rate housing, the Select Board considered and then postponed a decision on whether to divert inclusionary housing fees from its affordable housing trust into its market-rate trust, which is responsible for managing Harbor Hill, the timeshare property that the town bought in 2018.

NORTHAMPTON --- A report commissioned by the City of Northampton and designed to identify barriers to affordable housing found that 38 percent of the city's renters are spending more half their income on housing. The report, done by the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, details 16 barriers to housing access and identifies several solutions to address them,

BOSTON --- The real estate group that owns several Morrissey Boulevard properties adjacent to the old Boston Globe plant has filed plans to turn the former WB-56 television studio property into two 17-story apartment towers with over 600 units of housing. The letter of intent filed by David Raftery of Center Court Partners is a scaled down version of a plan Center Court filed in 2018 calling for buildings of 24 and 21 stories.

STERLING --- Citing past expenditures to fix its historic town hall and purchase land for open space, town officials are once again discussing whether to ask voters to adopt the Community Preservation Act, which would allow the town to impose a surcharge to create funds to use for open space, historic preservation and affordable housing. During this recent discussion, town officials brought in MHP Senior Program Manager Shelly Goehring, who showed examples of how towns have used CPA for housing and how the adoption of a Municipal Affordable Housing Trust can help towns use CPA funds more efficiently and effectively. Goehring helps towns form trusts and forming a trust is one of the recommendations in Sterling's recently completed Housing Production Plan.