Housing Headlines

BREWSTER --- Voters at Town Meeting took two steps toward increasing its supply of affordable housing on May 7, authorizing the creation of an affordable housing trust and voting to transfer a 15-acre town-owned parcel to the select board for community housing, with an additional restriction that the land be used for affordable housing.

WELLFLEET --- Voters at town meeting decisively shot down an article proposing to use funds to support the redevelopment of the nine acre Council on Aging site into a new town hall annex, saying that the land was too valuable and should be used for affordable housing. “This is far and away the most viable piece of land that we own in town,” said Gary Sorkin, who serves on both the housing authority and the local housing partnership. “It would be a great space for housing. In the last 25 years we have lost 62 percent of the young people in our town. We all know it’s about affordability. That’s the crux of so many of our issues.”

BOSTON --- The importance and future of Boston's historic three-deckers was the subject of a day-long conference sponsored by Historic New England last week, with much of the talk centered around the fact that prices have gone up four times faster than single-family homes since 2009, and what can be done to preserve them or create a housing alternative for the working class.

HAMILTON --- Motivated by a 2016 town meeting discussion over affordable housing, local resident Anna Siedzik has started a group called Hamilton Affordable Housing Advocates and reports that the group now has around 150 members.

CHELSEA --- Developer Greg Antonelli is proposing to build 66 mixed-income apartments on what is now an abandoned, trash-strewn lot at 170 Cottage St. near the new Silver Line transportation route. The development would be the first built under the city's new inclusionary zoning bylaw, with 20 percent of the apartments affordable.

BOSTON --- After reports that a resident at South Boston's Mary Ellen McCormack housing development was renting out a bedroom in a unit for $36 per night on Airbnb, the Boston Housing Authority immediately started the process of evicting the tenant.