Housing Headlines

BOSTON --- Noting his ability to work with businesses and across party lines, the Massachusetts Competitive Partnership has named the Baker Administration's Jay Ash as its new CEO. Mike Kennealy will take over Ash’s job as the state’s housing and economic development secretary. Ash will lead a group of 17 CEOs, nearly all of who run companies that are top employers in the state.

HAVERHILL --- An employee from Haverhill-based Progressive Roofing has been identified as the man who died in a fall from the ninth floor of an affordable housing construction site on Dec. 18. The Essex County District Attorney's Office identified the victim as Carlos Ortiz, 41. He fell through an elevator shaft at the former Chen Building, which is being converted into 62 affordable apartments by a division of Peabody Properties.

WEYMOUTH --- Using zoning the city passed in March to encourage mixing housing into commercial districts, John M. Corcoran and Co. have proposed to knock down two commercial buildings at 1500 Main St. and construct three buildings featuring 237 market-rate apartments and 6,000 square feet of commercial space.

BOSTON --- The failed bid for Amazon's new headquarters now history, HYM Investment Group is back to pushing its master plan for the 161-acre Suffolk Downs site. The plan, which includes 10,000 new homes of which 900 would be affordable, is drawing the attention of advocates and local leaders like city councilor Lydia Edwards, who would like to see more affordable housing to offset rising prices and displacement in neighborhoods like East Boston.

SUDBURY --- By the required two-thirds majority, special town meeting voters OK'd the transfer of a town-owned site and the necessary zoning to developer Christopher Claussen, who is planning to build 274 apartments on the former Melone gravel pit site. The vote is a compromise as the gravel pit project was preferable to the Ch. 40B housing proposal Claussen had previously proposed nearer to the town center.

SOMERVILLE --- The Globe's Tim Logan takes a deep dive into the politics of making over Somerville's Union Square neighborhood and how it "epitomizes, in many ways, the transformation of much of blue-collar Boston into something entirely new — and the chafing and tussles over turf that often accompany such change."