Housing Headlines

FALL RIVER --- Two weeks after Rep. Carole Fiola met with elderly residents and three days after another meeting at Doolan Apartments, a third meeting became heated over the Fall River Housing Authority's recent placement of young disabled residents into elderly public housing. Most of the complaints centered around suspected drug use. The practice began after the housing authority missed a deadline to submit an updated housing plan to the federal government.

BOSTON --- The City of Boston shut down a Massachusetts Ave. storage facility after discovering that several individuals were living in storage units. One person told inspectors she's paying $230 a month and police observed one unit had curtains, a bed and a love seat.

WORCESTER --- Roseland Residential Trust officially cut the ribbon on 145 Front Street at City Square, the 365-unit downtown luxury apartment complex. The event marked the opening of both phases, the 237-unit phase which opened in the spring and the second phase of 128 units that opened during the summer. According to Roseland, So far, 146 have been leased so far and the company hopes to be 70 percent leased by end of the year.

BREWSTER --- Once recognized by the Massachusetts Housing Partnership with a Housing Hero Award for its outstanding history producing apartments and homes, Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod celebrated another milestone recently, opening Paul Hush Way, a five-home affordable development.

PROVINCETOWN --- Provincetown's quest to buy a bankrupt 26-unit timeshare and turn it into affordable housing took another step forward this week as a judge in bankruptcy court ordered for the sale to commence. Provincetown has agreed to buy the property for $8.1 million but had to go through years of delays as the 1,000-person ownership structure was untangled at the registry of deeds.

TRURO --- With 29 of its 2,089 single-family homes over 5,000 square feet and 60 percent of them built since 2005, the Truro Planning Board is considering adopting a bylaw that would limit house sizes to 3,600 square feet for the minimum lot size of .775 acres in its residential district.