Housing Headlines

MARTHA'S VINEYARD --- The number of affordable housing units available for rent or purchase on Martha's Vineyard is at an all-time high, but Island housing officials Philippe Jordi and David Vigneault say that fewer Island residents are financially qualified to buy, or even rent, housing priced as low as 50 percent of market home prices and rental rates.

LOWELL --- A commercial phase of Lowell's $800 million Hamilton Canal District revitalization project has hit a snag as a state nonprofit has turned down a developer's initial request for $5.4 million in grant funding. Trinity Financial, the Boston firm tabbed by the city to redevelop this 15-acre district, has already developed Appleton Mills into housing and had hoped to use MassWorks grant funds to rehab another mill into 55,000 square feet of commercial space.

DORCHESTER --- The O'Hearn Storage Building in Fields Corner is home to a post office and a handful of small businesses, but local historians and developers believe a renovation project that includes apartments could bring back an historic property and continue the neighborhood's recent revitalization.

FALL RIVER --- Utiilizing a federal program, the city's housing authority will borrow $6.2 million to make its 2,500-unit public housing portfolio more energy efficient. The funds will be used to better insulate building exteriors, install energy efficient lighting, new boilers and a co-generation unit at Cardinal Medeiros Towers.

LOWELL --- Two weeks after touring three Trinity Financial housing developments in Boston, Ayer selectman Jim Fay visted the company's revitalization of Lowell's Appleton Mills into 130 apartments. Fay was impressed by the project and said he felt Trinity would do a good job with its proposal to build 246 apartments at the former Fort Devens military site. Trinity is in the process of convincing three abutting towns - Ayer, Shirley and Harvard - to OK the project.

HARVARD --- After a meeting with the state, the town has agreed to use its local housing trust to make mortgage payments on its two small affordable housing properties through March, thus delaying until April foreclosure proceedings on the loan supporting The Inn and Great Elms.