Housing Headlines

ANDOVER --- A developer's plan to build 32 three-bedroom townhouse condominiums on 12 acres is getting a chilly reception from neighbors, who fear the 40B project will crowd schools, clog roads and eat up open space. Andover's affordable housing percentage recently dipped below 10 percent after the 220-unit Riverview Apartment's 20-year affordability restriction expired last year. Developers have greater latitude to build housing at densities greater than local zoning allows in towns that are under 10 percent.

WELLESLEY --- Once a destination for shoppers looking for hardware store items, groceries and cars, Linden St. celebrated the beginning of a new era earlier this month as Federal Realty had an open house for the affordable units in its 40B rental project.

NATICK --- The latest proposal for the former Natick Paperboard factory includes 138 apartments, some of which will be considered affordable, and a dozen townhouses to be sold at the market rate. Developer Barberry Homes of Framingham presented the latest plans to the Planning Board earlier this month. The project would be built under the state's Chapter 40R affordable housing regulations, which require 20 percent of the units to be rented at below market rates.

YARMOUTH --- The town's newly-formed affordable housing trust is looking to use Community Preservation Act Funds to buy up to 14 homes and then resell them at a reduced, affordable price.

SPRINGFIELD --- The city is seeking proposals from local agencies to provide "rapid re-housing" assistance to homeless families under a new federal grant program. The city plans to apply for a three-year grant totaling $423,616 to provide short-term rental assistance and services to homeless families. The aim of the program is to help the families become self-supporting within 18 months, Geraldine McCafferty, the city's deputy director of homeless and special needs housing, said Monday.

BOSTON --- A long-standing civil rights suit between Lowell public housing tenants and the city's housing authority has been settled, with the agreement calling for a program to help former residents of the Julian D. Steele housing project find good housing in neighborhoods of their choice, including in "opportunity areas" that are racially integrated. Tenants had charged they had been relocated to more racially-segregated areas of the city to make way for a new mixed-income housing community.