Housing Headlines

ARLINGTON --- Long Island-based Timber Ridge Homes has backed out of its arrangement to buy and develop the Symmes Hospital site after it balked at a town bylaw that requires large-scale developers to make 15 percent of its housing affordable. Timber Ridge was going to buy the property from another developer, JPI, and had offered the town $2 million to avoid the affordable housing requirement. Town officials say that is about $4 million less than the bylaw requires.

BURLINGTON --- The downtown overlay district is beginning to show progress as 41 condominiums and 37 apartment units are under construction or near completion. More than 10 percent of Burlington's housing is affordable and the town is considering a measure that would require future developments to have affordable units so the town can keep its percentage of affordable units above 10 percent.

BOSTON --- A Fairhaven real estate firm must pay thousands of dollars in penalties after Attorney General Martha Coakley busted an alleged foreclosure scheme that involved attempts to force tenants out of their homes.

PITTSFIELD --- A total of $1 million in state grants will be coming to this city to support the rehabilitation of four neglected properties and to help a developer acquire and redevelop a mill building into rental housing.

HOPKINTON --- After more than a year of negotiations and delays, developer Roy MacDowell Jr. has been granted a special permit to develop the 730-acre Weston Nursuries site into 940 housing units. Known as Legacy Farms, plans call for condos, market-rate and affordable rental apartments and up to 50 single-family homes. The project also includes 450,000 square feet of commercial space, 500 acres of open space, 77 acres for Weston Nurseries, and 40 acres for playing fields and town uses.

FALL RIVER --- A bid to add language to the city's housing plan that would call for reduced density in public housing was voted down by the city council due to fears that it could cause the city to forfeit nearly $5 million in federal housing funds. The city's plan does include language outlining the city's ongoing efforts to reduce density at the Watuppa Heights housing project.