Housing Headlines

Working off a Washington Post analysis that rents have fallen for the highest earners while increasing for the poorest in several American cities, WBUR's Benjamin Swasey asked the real estate data firm Zillow for metro Boston numbers and found rents in Greater Boston have increased for everyone, but less so for the top tier of the market. Swasey found that the median rent in the most expensive third of the local market increased 20 percent from June 2011 to June 2018. For the bottom third, it's risen 27 percent. For the middle third, it's increased 32 percent.

BOSTON --- An overflow crowd came to Simmons College in the Fenway recently to hear Cabot, Cabot & Forbes' plans to replace a taxi garage and a second building on Kilmarnock and Queensberry streets with two eight-story buildings housing 443 residential units. Rather than include affordable units in the project, the developer will pay into a city affordable housing fund specifically to support the purchase of the 97-unit Newcastle/Sarnac Apartments in partnership with the Fenway Community Development Corp. This building is located .75 miles from the development site at 599 Columbus Ave.

PEABODY --- While celebrating the role the Community Preservation Act has played in raising the quality of life for many Peabody residents, Community Preservation Act Committee Chair Mike Schulze says much more needs to be done to use the funds for affordable housing. Since 2002, the city has used $13 million n CPA funds - $8.17 million for open space and recreation, $3.24 million on historic preservation and $1.67 million on housing. "We've got the money to spend for affordable housing, we need (it), we're looking to do it," Schulze told the city council, noting that the CPC has a $3 million balance. "We can't create the project, but we will bring the money."

The Boston Globe's Evan Horowitz jumps into the numbers on homeownership and finds that the lack of starter homes is due to a significant drop in people who have owned their homes for five to nine years. Horowitz found that from 2005 to 2016, people who had lived in their homes five to nine years had dropped by nearly a third while there was a 22 percent increase among those who had stayed in the same place 10 to 19 years.

CHELSEA --- Having already worked together to bring mixed-income housing to a formerly rundown industrial area known as the Box District, Traggorth Companies and The Neighborhood Developers are at it again, proposing to turn a long-vacant property on Broadway near the Revere line into 42 mixed-income apartments.

ORLEANS --- Selectmen have voted to fund an initial assessment of the Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank operations center to see if the property is suitable to be redeveloped into affordable housing. The move comes as the bank prepares to centralize its operations in Hyannis. The bank is expected to move its personnel to Hyannis in 2019.