Housing Headlines

MARTHA'S VINEYARD --- A new consortium of advocates studying homelessness on the island have found that at least 64 people are homeless, and within that number, there are 16 families. The study also round that 90 percent of the homeless are island residents with roots in the community.

EASTON --- The town's Affordable Housing Trust is considering offering a grant to incentivize a developer to build a small affordable housing development of approximately 16 bedrooms on land the town bought in 1999. The Nov. 14 Special Town Meeting will ask voters to give selectmen the right to dispose of the Foundry St. property to a developer through an RFP process.

BEVERLY --- Rezoning around transit areas, starting a housing rehab program and starting a local housing trust are among the options residents are being asked to weigh in on as the city works with a consultant to create a new housing plan that will guide the community for the next 10 years.

BOSTON --- Fifty-nine units of affordable housing have been preserved in Dorchester and Mattapan through a $5.6 million sale of several properties to Codman Square NDC, tying up a saga of what tenants asserted was a long-term problem of property mismanagement and negligence on the part of their landlord.

SOUTHBOROUGH — In an unprecedented move, selectmen Thursday night voted 4-0 to hold a public hearing for the possible removal of Leo Bartolini from the Zoning Board of Appeals. the decision to have the hearing stems from two petitions filed with the town seeking to remove Bartolini, one centering on his handling of 40B decisions and the calling out Bartolini for his "sexist" treatment of women who comment at hearings.

WESTON --- Shouting at times, residents urged the Zoning Board of Appeals to take a had line with a developer's plan to seek a Ch. 40B permit from the town in order to build a 10-unit homeownership project on 2.95 acres, with two of the units set to be affordable. Resident were most concerned about environmental impacts, especially to abutting trees. The town hired an arborist who said the developer's changes to the project to address tree concerns were "substantive."