Housing Headlines

BOSTON --- With the closing on its $155 million purchase expected to be completed on May 26, HYM Investment Group, is expected to begin the long process of turning the 161-acre Suffolk Downs race track site into another Assembly Row or Boston Landing, with a cmplex of housing, shops, restaurants and offices. HYM is led by Tom O'Brien, the former Boston Redevelopment Authority director who has been involved in other big projects like Boston Landing and NorthPoint in East Cambridge.

BOSTON --- In the same week that the new Boston Landing site opened - giving the Allston-Brighton neighborhood its first commuter rail service in 55 years - The Michaels Organization from New Jersey has filed plans to build two six-story buildings and 262 apartments within walking distance of the new Brighton Landing rail stop. This is the third major residential proposal for the neighborhood along the Mass. Turnpike.

QUINCY --- In response to resident feedback, the Boncaldo family has revised its request for a Ch. 40B land use permit, proposing to cut its plan from 40 to 32 apartments. Since the new plan has just been submitted, the Zoning Board of Appeals has delayed its vote so it can study the new plan and now saysit won't vote until its June 13 meeting.

SWAMPSCOTT --- Town Meeting voters were "in the zone" earlier this month, passing two zoning changes, one that establishes a tourist lodging overlay district along the coast and another that would require projects of 10 units or more to have 10 percent of the units be affordable.

DORCHESTER --- City data is showing that while rents for newly constructed units continue to climb, properties built before 2011 have seen a four percent drop in prices in the city overall and five percent in Dorchester.

BEDFORD --- A recent story in the Bedford Citizen noted that the clearing of trees has begun on the former Coast Guard site, a seemingly insignificant blurb until you consider that the activity is the end of the beginning of a three-year effort by the town to get control of the site. The town worked with the federal government, used its local housing trust to get a six-month option to purchase the site and then the town issued a Request for Proposal from developers who would agree to buy the land under the condition that it would pursue the town's guidelines that 30 mixed-income apartments or condos be built on the site rather than five high-priced homes. The link above takes you to a January story that reports on the selection of the developer. Whatever is built, there will be affordable units which will add to the town's count, which is currently over 18 percent, believed to be the fifth highest in the state.