Housing Headlines

QUINCY --- Despite scaling back its proposal from 40 to 32 apartments, a local family's bid to develop a Wollaston corner into mixed-income housing with a Ch. 40B comprehensive land use permit was denied by the city's zoning board of appeals because the size and scale didn't fit with the neighborhood, according to ZBA Chair Martin Aikens. After the meeting, Sean Carpenter of Shamrock Development Associates, one of the consultants hired by the Boncaldo family, said, “We are disappointed, and are reviewing our options. The process was a bit of a guessing game, as board members were not forthcoming with their opposition until this evening.”

WORCESTER --- Two days before a June 28 fire destroyed the nearly complete Treadmark apartment building in Dorchester, Boston-based Trinity Financial celebrated some good news as the City of Worcester announced that the Boston-based developer had agreed to buy the historic former Worcester County Courthouse and turn it into 125 mixed-income apartments.

HYANNIS --- Two Cape non-profit affordable housing organizations have announced plans to join together to create a Cape Housing Institute to help teach local officials and volunteers how to better navigate the affordable housing process. The free, once-a-week, six-session workshop is expected to take place in the fall and it's modeled after the Massachusetts Housing Partnership's annual Housing Institute.

FRAMINGHAM --- Developer Roy MacDowell Jr. of Baystone Development is proposing to build 240 luxury apartments in the now-vacant Mount Wayte Plaza between downtown and Route 9. Residents have been clamoring for new shops at the site but MacDowell, who has an agreement to purchase the site fro owner Samuel Adams, said demand for retail is low given the site is two miles from the retail hubs on Rt. 9. Framingham's supply of affordable housing is at 10.4 percent.

BOSTON --- The decision by the owners of a new 195-unit Jamaica Plain apartment building to lease 24 of its apartments to a company that specializes in short-term corporate rentals is part of a trend that is worrying housing advocates who fear valuable housing is being siphoned off by short-term rentals.

SPRINGFIELD --- It was originally called the Housing Allowance Project. One of its first leaders was former Dukakis housing chief Amy Anthony. It was created to provide housing subsidies before Section 8 was invented. For a brief time, its name stressed its Hampden and Hampshire county service areas. Then it went back to HAP. Now, its new name is about helping people. Here's the story of how HAPHousing became Way Finders.