Housing Headlines

LOWELL --- The Lowell Plan, a nonprofit corporation responsible for charting the city's future, has hired a leading New Urbanist planning firm, Jeff Speck and Associates, to revamp its downtown.

BOSTON --- Globe architecture critic Robert Campbell says the Rose Kennedy Greenway has a random feel, is devoid of people and feels the solution is to make it a neighborhood with housing, like they do in Paris where they always surround a new park with places for people to live.

STATE --- While critics of the state's controversial affordable housing law (Ch. 40B) warn that it has let loose a flood of projects, the Patriot Ledger reported last month that the the actual number of 40B projects has slowed down in the past few years.

ROSLINDALE --- The Boston Housing Authority (BHA) recently announced that the first phase the Washington-Beech redevelopment project will be completed at the end of the month. When both phases are complete, the new site will feature 342 mixed-income affordable housing units, including 206 affordable rentals and 136 off-site rental and loan-to-purchase units. The second phase of construction is set to begin in September and conclude in early 2012.

SPRINGFIELD --- Investigators are looking into the cause of six overnight fires that damaged five properties in a quarter-mile radius in the Liberty Heights neighborhood. Most of the properties were abandoned and investigators are checking on the ownership status of each property.

LOWELL --- The City Council recently voted to sell a former fire station to JTL Realty for the creation of three or four affordable housing units. The former Fourth Street Fire Station will be renovated to maintain the historic character of the building but upgrading will to take place to make the building Energy star certified. The units will be affordable to households earning at or below 50 percent of the area median income (AMI).