Housing Headlines

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.

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.

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.

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.

WORCESTER --- With the city in the middle of revising its housing plan and the mayor hinting at a "diminished role for neighborhood development," city officials were given a tour yesterday of housing developments sponsored by the city's community development corporations (CDCs). Organized by the mayor, the tour was given to highlight the value of community input, although CDC supporters have voiced concern that a seven-member council being created to oversee the new plan has a spot for only one CDC representative.

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.