Housing Headlines

HANOVER --- During a community meeting held inside the the former JC Penney store, residents wondered about the municipal impacts of a $250 million plan to demolish the enclosed Hanover Mall and redevelop it with an open-air complex that would combine retail, entertainment and 297 apartments marketed to empty-nesters and young professionals.

FALMOUTH --- Plans to turn the former Nautilus Motor Inn into an independent senior living complex are alive again, as new owner Mark Bogosian has asked the Cape Cod Commission to approve a slightly altered development plan that the commission OK'd for the previous owner back in 2008. Bogosian's main change is to construct 43 apartments in seven buildings rather than one large building, which the original plan proposed.

BILLERICA --- Hawthorn Retirement Group is proposing to redevelop the former Rangeway golf location into 151 apartments for the elderly. The proposal is the latest of several housing developments in town, which include the 384-unit mixed-income Aspen Regency Apartments, the 179-unit mixed-income Alpine Village apartments and a 200-unit "friendly 40B" by Alliance Residential at the corner of the Middlesex Turnpike and Lexington Road.

GREENFIELD --- Sympathetic that the homeless have no other place to go but concerned that the camp has grown and is raising public health issues, the Greenfield Board of Health has voted to order the homeless to leave their camp on the downtown Common by Aug. 20. Simultaneously, Mayor William Martin is working to create temporary housing for some of the homeless at the former Clinical & Support Options office near downtown.

HAVERHILL --- Mayor James Fiorentini is urging the Haverhill City Council to approve a $1.12 million bond that would cover public infrastructure costs associated with developer Sal Lupoli's plans to build a 10-story building near the Merrimack River. The city had planned to use state funds to build a parking garage and a boardwalk extension but the two projects turned out to be more expensive than anticipated and the grant money was lost at the end of the fiscal year, causing the city to seek a local solution. "The state has made it clear to us we got millions and millions in MassWorks money. ... We've tapped out as much as we can of other resources. It's time for us to step up to the plate," Fiorentini said.

FALL RIVER — During a period when it failed to submit a new housing plan with the federal government, the Fall River Housing Authority moved approximately 15 young disabled residents into housing that was for years designated as elderly. The plan, due in April but filed in August, designates which properties will house elderly, families and the disabled. During the period when the plan elapsed, elderly residents began complaining that their facility was no longer elderly only.