Housing Headlines

HARVARD -- Residents near a proposed affordable housing development say they are not opposed to affordable housing but that they are concerned that the town's affordable housing trust almost entered into an agreement with a developer whose proposal residents did not like.

SHIRLEY --- A regional planner met with the planning board recently to explain how creating an affordable housing plan would put the town on track to create more affordable housing and gain greater control over Ch. 40B housing development.

NEWTON --- Residents say an 80-unit mixed-use, mixed-income development plan for a city-owned parcel near the commuter rail in the city's Newtonville section is too big.

BROCKTON --- Windover Construction and Peabody Properties are partnering with two nonprofits - Father Bill's & MainSpring and Affordable Housing and Services Collaborative of Braintree - to do a $7 million conversion of a federal building into 14 units of housing for veterans. The brick building is on the campus of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

FITCHBURG --- Officials say an apartment house fire that has left seven men homeless illustrates the difficulties the city has in regulating landlords who avoid the bureaucratic process involved in renting their properties to low-income residents.

PLYMOUTH --- Ten years after obtaining a copper and brass factory site that had been cleaned up by the Plymouth Redevelopment Authority, Weymouth-based developer John Iredale finally came before the Zoning Board of Appeals to begin the process of asking for a special permit that would allow him to develop 42 mixed-income apartments.