Housing Headlines

SCITUATE --- The local housing authority hopes to team up with a private developer to build 30 affordable apartments for seniors on land the housing authority owns behind Central Park.The town's housing trust has already pledged to support the project with $600,000 and voters at Town Meeting on April 26 will be asked to OK an additional $1.9 million in Community Preservation Act funds to the development.

SOUTH YARMOUTH --- Efforts to transform some of the town's motel properties into housing took a step forward recently as a developer officially bought the former Cavalier Motel Lodge on Route 28. Dakota Partners, which has developed affordable housing in Hyannis, bought the property for $2.53 million and will now seek state financing in order to build 69 apartments. Dakota originally proposed 120 apartments but scaled plans back after significant resident feedback.

QUINCY --- Two years after pulling a proposal due to resident resistance and a court appeal, the Boncaldo family will apply to the city for a Ch. 40B comprehensive land permit so it can develop land it owns in the Wollaston section into 40 mixed-income apartments.

SWAMPSCOTT --- Acting on a recommendation spelled out in its recent housing and master plans, Town Meeting will consider this spring an inclusionary zoning bylaw that would require developers to make 15 percent of its housing affordable for new multi-family development with 10 units or more; a new subdivision, with six units or more; and an assisted living or independent living facility, with five units or more..

BROOKLINE --- Having complied with a short-term plan to show progres, Brookline has been granted a one-year reprieve from future Ch. 40B housing proposals so it can deal with the proposals before them. Previously, the state had granted Brookline more time to deal with 10 40B proposals before them. Since that waiver, Brookline has OK'd 131 units and four projects located at 420 Harvard St., 40 Centre St., 1180 Boylston St., and 384 Harvard St.

In an opinion piece for the Boston Globe, reporter and author George Donnelly says horror stories about people trying to find housing is a symptom of Boston's broken real estate market. Quoting MHP's Clark Ziegler, Donnelly notes that a legislative effort to require communities to zone for multifamily is gaining steam but he urges that change better come fast before Massachusetts loses too many workers to places with more affordable housing.