Housing Headlines

BROOKLINE --- The developer who has been in litigation with the town over the expansion of Hancock Village has now pitched a 21-story, 320-apartment residential complex for the town’s Coolidge Corner neighborhood under the state’s affordable housing law, but local officials say they want to limit the scope of the project.

ARLINGTON --- The Arlington Redevelopment Board has granted a special permit to allow a 14-unit development on Broadway, making it the first project to take advantage of bylaws Town Meeting passed in the spring to encourage mixed-use development on Mass. Ave. and Broadway, two of the town's main commercial corridors.

AMHERST — Determining building heights, ensuring there is sufficient outdoor play space and keeping a pedestrian path from entering onto a road are among the concerns residents expressed at the first of three scheduled Zoning Board of Appeals meetings concerning a 130-unit mixed-use project that Boston-based Beacon Communities is hoping to build with a Ch. 40B comprehensive permit.

CAMBRIDGE --- MIT presented plans for public comment this week on the design for a new 28-story Kendall Square dormitory and the open-space plan for the five-building complex it received approval for this summer. Despite that approval, each building must go through its own design review.

EAST LONGMEADOW --- Stymied several times to get the town to OK zoning to build a mixed-use residential/commercial development, a local developer is now making plans to build a mosque on the property he owns in the center of town.

HYANNIS — The name of the downtown homeless shelter has changed and there have been significant improvements there since Catholic Social Services took over operations last month, officials from the Fall River-based agency and the state Department of Housing and Community Development told the Barnstable Town Council this week.