Housing Headlines

GRAFTON --- Selectmen have voted 3-2 not to reappoint Edward Prisby to the town's affordable housing trust committee. Prisby had questioned the town's decision to place $900,000 won in a profit dispute with a 40B developer into the town's general fund as opposed to the housing trust.

SUDBURY --- The town recently broke ground on the construction of three affordable homes that will be sold to families earning less than 80 percent median income. The Sudbury Housing Trust has hired Transformation Inc. to build the homes on Maynard Road. A stand-alone home will sell for $180,800 while each unit in a duplex will ell for $162,700.

WALTHAM (originally published on May 22) --- To help the city meet the requirement of spending at least 10 percent of its collected Community Preservation Act funds on housing, a local nonprofit, the housing authority and the Community Preservation Committee have proposed a three-year, $3.2 million program that would provide rental assistance to low-income residents. City officials like the idea but have expressed concern that it is too big and too costly.

SOMERVILLE --- Single mom Martine Dreux's ongoing search for affordable housing illustrates how hard it is to find affordable housing in Somerville and why the city officials have proposed creating a centralized waiting list that they could refer to whenever an affordable unit of any type becomes available.

BOSTON --- While affordable housing advocates maintain that state statute Ch. 40B is an important tool in developing multifamily housing in places where zoning doesn't allow it, Mass. Municipal Association Executive Director Geoff Beckwith says the law renders communities powerless because "developers hold all the cards" and "they are never overruled by the state and essentially call all the shots."

CHELSEA --- Having successfully transformed a former industrial site into a new neighborhood called the Box District, The Neighborhood Developers of Chelsea have run into stiff opposition over its plan to turn a former social club it has purchased into 60 units of affordable apartments. Reportedly, hundreds of residents in the neighborhood known as Mill Hill have signed a petition saying there is too much affordable housing in Chelsea already while others say more homeownership developments are needed.