Housing Headlines

HYANNIS --- Massachusetts Secretary of Housing and Livable Communities Edward Augustus said during a speech at a housing summit that a policy proposal embedded in Governor Maura Healey's Affordable Homes Act could be a tool to address the Cape's housing crisis. A seasonal community designation could mean gaining access to grant programs tailored to community needs or special consideration under certain state grant programs.

ARLINGTON --- Arlington Town Meeting approved a zoning plan allowing three and four-family apartment buildings along the town's major commercial arteries without special approval by a town board. Buildings up to five or six stories, depending on the specific location, will be allowed if 25 percent of their units are set aside for affordable housing or if space on the ground floor is designated for commercial businesses. The town held more than 25 meetings on the zoning rules. Tensions ran so high at one meeting of the town’s redevelopment board that the police had to be called.

ROXBURY --- Saige on the Fountain, a new affordable housing development at 25 Fountain St., is focused on homeownership as a way to build generational wealth. The building’s 40 condos are all income-restricted. “Homeownership is a pathway to generational wealth. But for many families, the path has been a dead end,” Ed Augustus, secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities, said at a ribbon cutting for the development.

BOSTON --- Our Lady’s Guild House, a rooming house in Boston’s Fenway, has been sold for $14 million to a pair of nonprofit developers who intend to renovate the brick building and preserve permanent affordable housing there. The Attorney General’s office earlier this year confirmed that all 140 rooms would be preserved as deed-restricted affordable housing.

BROOKLINE --- Two housing advocacy groups have reached agreement on a compliance plan for the MBTA Communities Act. The agreement builds on a “consensus plan” put forward by Brookline town staff which would rezone Harvard Street to make it easier for developers to build multifamily housing in buildings as tall as four stories. There is still a long road to passage, and final approval rests with Town Meeting members who would need to approve the measure by a two-thirds vote next month.

SOMERVILLE --- Mark Development, a Newton- and New York-based developer, has purchased the former Star Market, plans to demolish it and replace it with two six-story buildings. The development will include 288 units of rental housing — 132 of them affordable — along with ground-level retail. The supermarket in Somerville’s Winter Hill neighborhood, has stood vacant for nearly two decades.