Housing Headlines

BOSTON --- Saying once that she was born working, Doris Bunte is being remembered after her death at age 87 for her advocacy and drive that made her the first Black woman elected to be a state rep., the first Black woman to run the Boston Housing Authority, and the first housing project tenant to rise up and run it .“One of the most difficult assignments anybody’s ever had was integrating public housing," said former mayor Ray Flynn. “That’s her legacy."

In order to move the argument for affordable housing from talk to action, longtime advocate Gail Schecter of Chicago suggests 10 ways to broaden the conversation from housing need to asking what kind of community do we want to be. “Just as changing the phrase ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ broadened consensus for action, so will rephrasing the question about ‘affordable housing’ to ‘mixed-income housing.’ That change aims the focus on us, not ‘the other.’ ”

BOSTON --- Mayor Marty Walsh's bid to raise fees on large-scale developments to fund affordable housing and job training cleared one of its final hurdles on Feb. 11 as the Boston Planning & Development Agency board OK'd the plan to raise so-called linkage fees by 42 percent from $10.81 per square foot to $15.39 per square foot. Of this total, $13 will be devoted to affordable housing and $2.39 for workforce training.

NEWTON --- It's not back to the drawing board but a shift from hotel to life sciences & small cut in housing will bring developers Normandy Partners and Mark Development back before the City Council for approval. Despite the shift in plans for the mixed use project that includes over 500 apartments, Greg Reibman of the Newton-Needham Chamber of Commerce said the city has been trying to attract life sciences for years and he called the change "golden goose" city has been waiting for in terms of jobs & tax revenue.

SWAMPSCOTT --- The prospect of 128 apartments didn't sit well with residents at a recent neighborhood meeting hosted by the town and attended by representatives from WinnCompanies, a Massachusetts-based housing developer. Traffic and flooding were the primary concerns of residents in a town where an estimated three percent of its units are considered affordable. Winn is applying for a Ch. 40B land use permit to build the town's first five-story building on a 1.6 percent acre site near the town's commuter rail stop.

BOSTON --- The longtime former executive of the Madison Park Development Corp. has been named an executive vice president at Colliers, possibly the first woman of color to be named to an executive role at one of the city's major real estate companies. Jeanne Pinado acknowledged that she “may be the first” Black female executive at a real estate brokerage in Boston. But, she added, “I want my legacy to be that I’m not the last.”