Housing Headlines

BOSTON --- A group called 288 Tremont Street Partners has submitted a plan to turn a city-owned Chinatown parking lot into 171 mixed-income apartments, with 45 units affordable below 60 percent of area median income and the rest between 70 and 100 percent of area median income. The group includes Asian Community Development Corporation (ACDC); DoubleTree Hotel owner Corcoran Jennison; Tufts University’s Medical School; and Millennium Partners.

FALL RIVER --- There is no shortage of testimony to the sense that there's an appetite for market-rate housing in Fall River, with Starr Development encouraged by the fact that 20 of their 101 Cornell Mill Lofts apartments have rented one month after coming on the market. This news comes on the heels of the 101-unit Commonwealth Landing, which filled up two months after it opened. In the pipeline is one more market rate development as Alan Macomber, one of the Commonwealth Landing developers, wants to turn the former Durfee Tech building into 47 market-rate apartments. Rents at Cornell range from $1,270 to $1,795 a month, with an average rent of $1,400.

LINCOLN --- Voters at Lincoln Town Meeting approved by the required two-thirds majority special zoning to allow Civico Development to proceed with plans to develop Oriole Landing, a 60-unit mixed-income rental development. Voters were moved by the logic that this would keep the town's supply of affordable housing over 10 percent through the 2020 census, giving it greater control over larger developments that could be proposed through the Ch. 40B comprehensive permit process, which allows developers to bypass local zoning in town's where less than 10 percent of the housing is affordable.

BOSTON --- The city has chosen Neighborhood of Affordable Housing (NOAH) to develop a city-owned parcel on Condor Street, picking the East Boston-based nonprofit's plan over proposals submitted by Z Capital Investments and Pennrose Properties. NOAH's Phil Giffee said his organization would partner with the East Boston CDC to build a 41-unit neighborhood that would include mixed-income, ownership/rental housing and gallery spaces.

FRAMINGHAM --- Wood Partners has begun construction on a $60 million, 196-unit downtown housing development and parking garage within minutes of the commuter rail. The project, planned for 55-75 Concord Street - merges several parcels, including a parking lot, church, warehouses and vacant stores. To help get the development off the ground, Framingham residents voted to grant the project $5.9 million in subsidies through a 15-year tax increment financing agreement.

QUINCY --- The city is sharpening its pencils to show the state it has met requirements of the Ch. 40B law which allows developers to bypass local zoning if a community's affordable housing supply is less than 10 percent or covers less than 1.5 percent of land that can be developed. Quincy's supply is at 9.6 percent but the city's principal planner believes Quincy has gone past the 1.5 percent threshold and is working with the state to certify those numbers.