Housing Headlines

NEWTON --- After more than two years of negotiations between the city, neighborhood groups and the developers, the Newton City Council has unanimously approved a special permit and zoning changes that will allow the development of a 582-apartment mixed use project on land next to the MBTA's Riverside Station at Route 95.

In the wake of Gov. Baker's $171 million eviction diversion initiative, Cape Cod housing officials are urging tenants and landlords to ask for help before they fall into a crisis, even as underlying economic factors cause them to worry that a housing crisis may lie head. Cape officials see a perfect storm brewing as year-round homes are being sold to second-home buyers and seasonal workers cope with lower wages, which could hurt their unemployment benefits come winter.

The end of the Massachusetts eviction ban is a cause for concern, but reporting by WBUR's Beth Healy and Simón Rios shows that some landlords were pressuring tenants to leave during the ban. According to their interviews, complaints of landlord intimidation have been concentrated in East Boston, Chelsea and Lynn, with tactics that included harassing unemployed & ailing tenants with threats, torrential texting, changing locks, calling cops and threats to call immigration.

CAMBRIDGE --- After a long approval process that included more than 20 community meetings and 62 proposed amendments, the City Council voted 7-2 to OK a city-wide affordable housing overlay district that will increases in density, building heights and other changes for residential developments in which all units are affordable to households earning up to 100 percent of area median income and 80 percent of the units in any development affordable up to 80 percent AMI.

BOSTON --- A new report by Metro Housing|Boston has found that demand for housing assistance through the Residential Assistance to Families in Transition (RAFT) program has increased 62 percent in the metro Boston region since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March compared to one year ago. The report also found that in the first 12 weeks of FY21, nearly 1,100 households received $3.2 million in RAFT support.It took nine months to spend a similar amount in FY20.

BELMONT --- Town Meeting's approval of a special zoning overlay district by a vote of 256-5 clears the way for Northland Residential to move forward with a 150-unit mixed-use residential community on a 13.5 acre site at McLean Hospital.