Housing Headlines

EVERETT --- In preparation for the opening of the Encore Boston Harbor casino, the City of Everett is preparing to implement a new ordinance that would institute a 3 percent community impact fee on short-term rentals. Although the new revenues have not yet been earmarked for a specific use, the city says it's likely the funds will be used for affordable housing and infrastructure.

CHELSEA --- A project first proposed by YIHE Forbes of China in 2015 as 1,000 units and skyscrapers 21 stories tall has finally made its way through the avenues of Chelsea's government as the zoning board of appeals has OK'd a revised plan for 590 units, with 60 percent of those units being condos for sale and 59 units being affordable. The project will be built in an industrial area near the waterfront at Chelsea Creek.

WORCESTER --- The employment rate in Worcester’s two largest public housing projects has jumped by 24 percent in the past five years, indicating that its self-sufficiency work and job training programs - Step-Up, Family Self-Sufficiency and A Better Life - are working, according to officials at the Worcester Housing Authority.

SALEM --- For the second time in two weeks, the Salem City Council failed to deliver a two-thirds majority vote necessary to pass a bylaw that would promote the reuse of city and religious buildings for housing. The second defeat means this bylaw can't be reconsidered again until 2020.

LANCASTER --- Crescent Builders continues to wrestle with the town's zoning board of appeals over the size and configuration of buildings for the proposed Goodridge Brook Estates but the number of units developer Iqbal Ali hopes to build with a Ch. 40B comprehensive permit is the same - 96 apartments and 56 single-family homes.

QUINCY --- To eliminate red tape and cut the workload for a city planning department that has vetted plans for over 5,300 new homes since 2013, City Councilor Brian Palmucci has proposed to increase the threshold that triggers site plan review from three or more units to 10 or more units.