Housing Headlines

HINGHAM --- Local developer Thomas Hastings recently purchased the former Building #19 property and hopes to build 150 luxury senior condos.

TAUNTON --- Developer Russell Barnaby of Carlisle-based Taunton Mills LLC came before the city council in January to outline his $13.6 million plan to turn four industrial lots on Oak St. into a mixed-use development that includes 62 apartments - 40 in a new building and 22 in two existing buildings.

ANDOVER --- Hanover Properties of Boston and Houston moved one step closer to beginning work on a 250-unit Ch. 40B affordable housing development in the Shattuck Road industrial park after Suffolk Superior Court denied an appeal by five nearby businesses to stop the project.

TEWKSBURY --- A request for $90,000 in Community Preservation Act funds to rehab and expand Janet's House - a sober house for women - was denied by the CPC committee on the basis of it's status as a rehabilitation project, which the committee said is not allowed under CPC rules.

SOMERVILLE --- Affordability was the theme of the annual State of the City address recently, with Mayor Joe Curtatone, Alderman President Bill White and School Committee Chairman Adam Sweeting all pledging to work so working families aren't priced out of the city as a result of the Green Line expansion and redevelopment of Union Square.

KINGSTON --- Developer Peter Conant and his company, Own A Home Massachusetts, wants to build nine expandable starter homes next to the town's old fire house on Maple St. A spokesman for the company said the first floor of each home would be fully developed, the second floor would be unfinished and the sales price would be $300,000. The second floor would be finished if the buyer prefers. When complete, the homes would be two stories with two bedrooms, one and a half baths and a two-car garage.