Housing Headlines

BOSTON --- Saying that rising rents are disproportionately forcing Roxbury renters to move out, City Councilor Kim Janey is advocating for a city-funded voucher program as a response to gentrification and displacement in her district. Janey is proposing that the new program be funded by higher taxes on luxury condos.

For the second year in a row, the Hyannis-based Housing Assistance Corp. and the Outer Cape's Community Development Partnership are teaming up to offer the Cape Housing Institute, a series of workshops aimed at providing municipal officials throughout the Cape with the support, tools, and resources to boost affordable housing development in their communities.

SUDBURY --- Selectmen have voted to accept Sudbury native Chris Claussen's proposal to develop a 46.6 acre town-owned site on the Concord line in exchange for 40 acres in the town center that Claussen has not been able to develop due to a town lawsuit. The decision, which is subject to a Town Meeting vote, clears the way for Claussen and his Quarry North LLC to develop the so-called Melone property - a former gravel pit - into 225 mixed-income apartments and 24 age-restricted market-rate apartments, the same proposal he had been making for the downtown proposal, known as Sudbury Station. Claussen grew up in Sudbury and is now a developer, primarily in Florida.

PROVINCETOWN --- With the acquisition and process of converting the bankrupt Harbor Hill time share into 26 affordable apartments, Town Manager Dave Pangore and other town groups are now setting its sights on generating more affordable housing at the old VFW site and the former police station.

SOMERVILLE --- Plans by the Somerville Housing Authority and the Redgate real estate firm to renovate 216 public housing units and add market-rate units to the site are in question as Redgate tries to figure out the financing for the market-rate portion after a state-approved home rule petition included a requirement that prevailing wages be paid for both parts of the project. As a public-private partnership, the Clarendon project planned to pay its workers prevailing wage on the public portion but not the private portion, overseen by Redgate.

BROCKTON --- Against the wishes of its owner, who still hopes to make a development bid, the Brockton Redevelopment Authority has seized the eight-story downtown Furniture Building and has transferred it to Concord Square Development, which has proposed to redevelop the city's tallest building into 52 apartments that will be situated right across the street from the downtown commuter rail station.