Housing Headlines

AMHERST --- Town Manager Larry Shaffer recently announced that a plan will be developed to provide a shelter for the town's homeless population during the winter. Town staff in the Conservation and Architectural Development department are launching an architectural feasibility study to find an appropriate site for the shelter.

BELMONT --- The O'Neill Properties Group recently won approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection to build 299 mixed-income residential units on land surrounded by the 120-acre Alewife Brook Reservation. Environmental activists from Belmont and neighboring Cambridge have resisted the project because the land it would be built on houses an unusual silver maple forest and is surrounded by wetlands. There is no word on when construction would begin.

TOWNSEND --- RCAP Solutions recently celebrated the groundbreaking of 36 units of affordable senior housing adjacent to a senior housing complex the developer built 21 years ago. The new Townsend Woods complex received $5.5 million in funding from the federal government and $1 million from state funding sources. Construction is expected to be completed in the spring of 2011.

NEWTON --- Aldermen are reviewing a plan to build a supermarket, 92 apartments and a 300-car parking garage at the Newton Centre fire station site. Under the current proposal, which is smaller than the 114-unit plan floated last year, the developer would have to build the city new fire buildings in exchange for the rights to the land. The plan includes 74 one-bedroom and 18 two-bedroom units, for a total of 92.

FALL RIVER --- The Fall River YMCA says it cannot go forward with its $11 million plan to renovate its downtown facility after the city pulled back on a previous commimtent to provide $1.5 million in federal HOME funds to help support the housing portion of the project, which called for the renovation of the third and fourth floors into 42 units of affordable rental housing.

SHREWSBURY --- Town meeting last night lifted a nearly 30-year cap on the number of units that can go into an assisted-living complex. The town limited the number to 60 in the 1980s after the 233-unit South Gate was built and later granted a variance so that a 64-unit facility could be built. In support of the change, Town Manager Daniel J. Morgado said South Gate is the third largest taxpayer in town, that facility with 100 to 120 units is standard and a facility that size would generate about $120,000 in annual tax revenue.