Green building funds from the Obama administration may do more than help cut energy costs and shrink our carbon footprint — they could also be instrumental in preserving tens of thousands of affordable housing units now at risk.
Almost 17,000 Massachusetts apartments could move from “affordable” to out-of-reach over the next several years thanks mainly to expiring HUD and MassHousing subsidized mortgages first signed in the 1960s and 1970s. Increasingly, housing activists believe that green building funds may be one way to cushion the blow.
On April 14, affordable housing developers, policy advocates and green building experts brought together from across the country by a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation forum gathered in Boston to determine the best path forward to both cut energy costs and carbon production at our older housing stock, and to use those savings to preserve lower rents.
Virtually every month, somewhere in Greater Boston, Worcester or the Springfield area, apartment complexes built with federal or state assistance turn 40 — and with that anniversary, the mortgages that contain the use restrictions requiring owners to maintain the housing’s affordability to low- and moderate-income tenants expire. As the mortgages mature, many owners will have the option to retire their debt, end all affordability restrictions on the property and reposition their property as market housing.
Read more: Capping carbon and rent – Boston Business Journal:
http://boston.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2010/04/26/editorial2.html