Author: Dilia Ramirez
A New Model Deal: ‘0ld Law’ Section 202 Preserved Creatively
5 Things You Need to Know Today, 4/4
Patch Facts
5 Things You Need to Know Today, 4/4
Town Meeting and more for April 4.
By Emily Sussman
1) Today, rain is likely with patchy fog. It will be breezy, with highs around 50. The chance of rain is 70 percent. Tonight will be mostly cloudy, with a chance of rain in the evening, then a chance of showers after midnight. Near steady temperatures will be in the mid 40s.
2) It’s time for Annual Town Meeting! Check out the important issues up for a vote tonight at 7 pm at the Lawrence School—even if you’re not a Town Meeting member, you can still watch the proceedings.
3) The Falmouth Council on Aging will be hosting a seminar on walk-in baths and stairlifts today at 1 pm. The presentation on these senior-friendly features will include information on the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission’s Home Modification Loan program. For more information, please call 508-540-0196.
4) The Master Gardener Association of Cape Cod and the Cape Cod Cooperative Extension is offering eight weekly classes in Backyard Horticulture at the Barnstable County Fairgrounds on Mondays from 12:30-4 pm. Pre-registration is required and the cost is $50. For more information, please call 508-375-6697 or email tramose@barnstablecounty.org.
5) This day in history: writer Maya Angelou is born (1928); the NATO pact is signed (1949); and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated (1968).
Copyright © 2011 Patch. All Rights Reserved.
Hyperlink: http://falmouth.patch.com/articles/5-things-you-need-to-know-today-44-2
Amherst’s Olympia Oaks affordable housing project receives needed design work loan
Amherst’s Olympia Oaks affordable housing project receives needed design work loan
By Diane Lederman, The Republican
AMHERST – While plans to build to a 42-unit affordable housing project are before the Zoning Board of Appeals, the agency developing the project recently received a loan that will help it proceed with development work that will help lead to additional funding.
The Boston-based Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation awarded the Olympia Oaks project a loan of $95,500. HAPHousing, the Springfield-based nonprofit housing assistance agency, is working with the Northampton-based Valley Community Development Corp. on the project.
The community development finance company provides technical assistance, pre-development lending and consulting services to non-profit organizations involved in housing developments, among other projects.
Olympia Oaks on Olympia Drive is intended to provide affordable rents for people who earn 60 percent of the area’s median income.
HAP is currently seeking a comprehensive permit for the project from the Zoning Board of Appeals. The next hearing date is Thursday at 7:30 p.m. in Town Hall.
Rudy Perkins, HAP project manager and staff attorney, said the loan allows HAP to continue with design work that will enable the agency to apply for funding for the project. “It gets us in a position where we can go forward,” he said. He said the town has been very generous with the pre-development work, but the money is not endless.
The town, which has continued to support the project, has contributed community block grant and community preservation money, including $340,000 in pre-development costs.
HAP will be able to apply for tax credits that would contribute a good portion of the projected $9 million to $10 million project cost. If approved, the project could begin in the spring of 2012, and some units could be ready at the end of 2012, Perkins said earlier this year. Most likely, the units would be ready in 2013.
The town took the 27-acre site, 13.5 acres of which is suitable for housing, in the late 1980s by eminent domain and had planned to develop a project in conjunction with the University of Massachusetts, which owns land nearby. UMass decided not to proceed, so in 2004 the town secured a $50,000 appropriation to prepare for development
Housing project awarded $95K
Housing project awarded $95K
By Scott Merzbach
Staff Writer
A 42-unit affordable housing project planned on town land off East Pleasant Street is being provided $95,000 to cover some of the predevelopment costs.
The Community Economic Development Assistance Corp., a state community development finance institution, announced Tuesday that Olympia Oaks, a joint project of HAPHousing Inc. and Valley Community Development Corp., is one of two recipients of money. The other is Winter Gardens, a project in Quincy, which is getting $175,000 in loan funds.
“Projects such as Olympia Oaks and Winter Gardens are important because they ensure that residents in those communities have access to quality affordable housing,” said Roger Herzog, executive director of CEDAC, in a statement. “These funds allow each of them to take another step closer to construction.”
Construction costs are expected to be around $7 million, and when infrastructure is added in, the total project cost will be $10 million.
Together, the Olympia Oaks and Winter Gardens projects will provide an additional 66 units of affordable housing for residents in the state.
HAP is seeking a comprehensive permit from the Amherst Zoning Board of Appeals under the state’s Chapter 40B affordable housing law. The nonprofit agency has entered a 99-year ground lease with the town to use a portion of the 27-acre property for constructing the rental units, which will be for both families and individuals.
Amherst Bulletin. Copyright © 2007
Hyperlink: http://www.amherstbulletin.com/story/id/202925/
New loans help Quincy affordable-housing project gain momentum
New loans help Quincy affordable-housing project gain momentum
By Jessica Bartlett, Town Correspondent
QUINCY – Quincy’s Winter Garden development will receive an additional $175,000 in loans from the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp. to help in the pre-development stage of the affordable-housing project – a crucial step to getting it off the ground.
Winter Gardens, a 24-unit affordable-housing project run by the Neighborhood Housing Services of the South Shore, has already received $25,000 from CEDAC in addition to substantial funding from the state and federal governments.
This additional funding will not only solidify the project, said Roger Herzog, executive director of CEDAC, but provide much needed services and jobs to the community.
“We are pleased to be providing additional affordable-housing options and to work with non-profit community-based developers that have identified the needs of their neighborhoods and are addressing them,” said Herzog. “When you consider the additional long-term positive impacts of these developments, such as job creation and economic development, it is clear that these types of projects go beyond just housing — they help to strengthen the entire community.”
The development will be located near the Quincy Shipyard, on land where a dilapidated single-family home now sits. Soon to take its place will be the two-dozen affordable rental homes, a project that Herzog says will shape the community.
“Projects such as … Winter Gardens are important because they ensure that residents in those communities have access to quality affordable housing,” he said.
CEDAC is a unique service for non-profits, said Robert Corley, the executive director of the Neighborhood Housing Services of the South Shore, and loans like this will enable the project to get on its feet.
“It provides us financing to put everything in place before we start construction, and when we close on our financing, it will be repaid in full. But it’s a unique resource for non-profits, as there aren’t a lot of people who will lend you money in the pre-development phases,” Corley said.
According to Corley, the money will be used for architectural drawings and engineering, though the money can be used for any pre-development purpose.
In addition to the Winter Gardens development, Neighborhood Housing is also working on building a single-family home for returning disabled veteran families.
“To have a fully accessible single-family home in the Quincy neighborhood is something we’re working on now. There aren’t a lot of single-family homes handicap-accessible…but as far as our larger developments, Winter Gardens is it for right now,” Corley said.
Neighborhood Housing hopes to begin construction on the rent-controlled units by July, with completion slated for July of the following year.
In addition to providing $175,000 to Winter Gardens, CEDAC will also provide $95,500 in funding to Olympia Oaks affordable housing development in Amherst to assist in the pre-development stage of construction.
A public-private company, CEDAC provides community development financing to non-profit organizations throughout the state.
© 2011 NY Times Co.
Hyperlink: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/quincy/2011/03/cedac_helps_quincy_affordable.html
Affordable Housing Fights Loom As Some Units Near Expiration Date
Expiring Use
Affordable Housing Fights Loom As Some Units Near Expiration Date
How The So-Called ‘40-Year Problem’ Is Creating Big Headaches Today
By Colleen M. Sullivan, Banker & Tradesman Staff Writer
A fight in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood to preserve the affordability of a local apartment block may only be the opening round in a statewide war between landlords and tenants over thousands of affordable housing units set to have their subsidies expire in the next few years.
The Burbank Apartments on Haviland Street in the Fenway make up 173 of the more than 29,000 Massachusetts units affected by the so-called “40-year problem.” Beginning in the 1960s, the federal government offered developers cheaper mortgages if they agreed to ensure apartments built using the funds were offered at below-market rates for the duration of the mortgage – usually 40 years.
Most of the Massachusetts properties developed using the subsidies were built between 1972 and 1976, and will pay off their mortgages within the next few years, leaving it up to owners to decide whether to continue to maintain affordable units or convert apartments to prevailing market rates. A new report by the Community Economic Development Assistance Corp. (CEDAC), a quasi-state agency monitoring affordable housing in Massachusetts, suggests many landlords are willing to take that leap – potentially eliminating as many as 10,000 affordable units in the course of just a few years.
“We’re always concerned about this issue, because it’s so hard to replace affordable units, especially in high-cost neighborhoods,” said Shelia Dillon, housing advisor to Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino. “Those opportunities just don’t come along again.”
Project Vs. Tenant-Based
The roughly 29,000 properties affected by the 40-year problem represent about one-third of the state’s existing affordable units. The problem threatens to lower the ratio of affordable to market-rate properties in cities and towns across the state, an important benchmark in determining whether developers may bypass local zoning ordinances when constructing housing under Chapter 40B, a state statute meant to encourage new affordable housing development.
Starting in the 1990s – when many of the affected property owners became eligible to pre-pay mortgages and leave the program – Congress authorized HUD to create a number of new subsidies allowing landlords to receive market-rate rents while also maintaining affordability.
These programs were initially successful in convincing landlords to keep the units affordable. But that may be changing.
“After the HUD changes, we went through a period of about 10 years where we were losing very, very few [affordable units]. People had a false sense of complacency, I think, that that period of almost negligible lost units would continue,” said Bill Brauner, housing preservation program manager for CEDAC. “But we’re in a different world now, and the indications from the Year 40 report is that we are looking at a greater number of lost units if significant changes aren’t made.”
Central to the problem has been a federal shift in emphasis from “project-based” subsidies –which require a particular apartment to be subsidized for a period of time – to “tenant-based” subsidies, which allocate subsidies, often in the form of vouchers, to individuals based on income and other factors. While some project-based subsidies are still available, tenants of landlords who elect to opt out of a HUD program usually receive vouchers. Such vouchers have been secured for the Burbank apartments.
“In the process of converting this property from a subsidized to a market-rate development, the company has secured HUD enhanced vouchers for every unit,” David Ball, a spokesman for Burbank Apartments’ ownership, said in a statement. “This is an expansion of affordable housing in Boston, not a retrenchment.”
But the vouchers carry their own problems, affordable housing advocates contend.
“There’s two critical problems with changing from an apartment based subsidy to a purely voucher based. It’s going to be trickier and harder for the [current] tenants to qualify, and it’s only going to be available to current tenants who qualify, not future tenants,” said Dharmena Downey, executive director of Fenway Community Development Corp. “So the affordability gets moved, and thus it’s lost in this neighborhood.”
Tough Row To Hoe
Those reasons compelled her group to file suit to prevent the Burbank Apartments from going market-rate. The group, along with the Burbank Apartment Tenants Association and the Massachusetts Coaliton for the Homeless, is also arguing that converting the units will disproportionately impact minority groups and the elderly, and is therefore a form of discrimination.
Several affordable housing advocates said they were unaware of any similar suit by a community development group. There has been at least one case, involving the Ardemore Apartments in Wellesley, in which a group of tenants sued to prevent a landlord from converting to market rate, but that case involved a property built according to restricted zoning regulations that required the property to remain affordable.
“It’s a pretty difficult row for them to hoe, because this was based on a contractual obligation between [the owners] and HUD,” and basic contract law principles entitle parties to rely on the provisions of a legal contract, including the expiration date, to be enforced, according to Jeffrey Turk, a partner at Braintree-based real estate law firm Marcus Errico Emmer & Brooks. “A lot of people were buying these properties and investing in these properties based on knowing that the affordability provisions [in a few years] would be lifted.”
A win for the CDC and its allies in the Burbank case would drastically alter the affordable housing landscape in the commonwealth. And even if victory for the Fenway group is a longshot, the existence of the dispute may foretell more contentious battles to come as more properties near their expiration date.
A task force already exists to monitor the intentions of landlords as projects near their affordability expiration dates, and a statutory provision passed in 2009 allows the state to acquire such properties to preserve affordability. But allocated funds have yet to be tapped, and in an era of fiscal constraint, any further spending is a tough sell.
“The state has provided a lot of leadership,” said Roger Herzog, executive director of CEDAC. “But we really need some federal help to make this work.”
To read the full CEDAC report, click here.
Don’t slash workforce training
Don’t slash workforce training
AS I SEE IT
By Roger Herzog and Ann Donner
Climbing out of a jobless recovery is not an easy task. For college-educated men and women who are out of work, it requires diligence. It is even more of a challenge for lower-income residents without the professional networks or skill sets that will make them competitive in the workforce.
That makes the work of employment counselors and job training center professionals all the more important. They are the individuals on the front lines connecting job seekers with potential hiring managers. And right now, funding and other resources for their critical work is threatened. At a time when we should be providing resources for those in workforce development, we are instead limiting their means to help employers find employees and the unemployed find jobs.
This is especially significant for Central Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, Worcester County has borne much of the brunt of the Great Recession. Even though the state has fared better than the national average in terms of unemployment, many communities in Central Massachusetts have unemployment rates that are higher than both the state and national averages.
For instance, according to state unemployment statistics, the Leominster/Fitchburg area had a 10.7 percent unemployment rate in December (not seasonally adjusted), whereas the overall state average was 8 percent.
This is part of the reason that the Commonwealth Workforce Coalition (CWC), managed by the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC), recently held our annual conference at Devens. More than 350 individuals from across the state, whose job it is to boost Massachusetts’ overall economic performance by helping others find work, came together to share insights on finding jobs for individuals eager to work.
It is important to understand what these professionals do. Job counselors and workforce development experts are largely invisible but vital to making this economic recovery sustainable and to keeping our region competitive nationally and internationally. They assist job seekers by identifying opportunities and matching the skills of unemployed individuals with prospects.
As important, they are helping employers find qualified workers. They are meeting with hiring managers and working with them to make sure that their needs are fulfilled. They are also helping underemployed individuals gain the appropriate skills to achieve family-sustaining wages.
Research shows that, on average, a person will have 25 different jobs in their lifetime. For lower skilled workers, job developers are critical in helping them prepare for jobs and career paths to family-sustaining wages. At the same time, productive, appropriately trained employees are necessary for the long-term growth of businesses in New England.
Despite their importance to our economic recovery, however, those who specialize in workforce development are facing diminishing resources themselves.
According to the National Skills Coalition, $2.97 billion in funding for the Workforce Investment Act (WIA) would be eliminated in the 2012 budget the House of Representatives passed recently, which is 100 percent of WIA funds. The proposal also rescinds $175 million for the current year.
Such cuts threaten the very existence of career centers and workforce development agencies. The commonwealth of Massachusetts has been a strong partner in promoting these services, but slashes to job training on the federal level will have a strong, and potentially devastating, impact on employment and slow economic recovery.
Additionally, workforce development professionals need added opportunities to share with each other what they are seeing on the ground. The conference content came straight from the field, from agencies like the Worcester Housing Authority or Employment Links Inc. in Leominster.
As part of CEDAC, a public/private agency that offers support to nonprofit community development agencies throughout the state, CWC’s mission is to provide technical assistance to the men and women who are critically important to developing the workforce pipeline. This conference is the one major opportunity they have every year to learn from each other regarding critical issues such as youth employment and navigating the CORI system. More resources for job counselors means more effective job placement, which is a win for everyone, a fact that Lt. Gov. Tim Murray recognized when he addressed the conference to say that “now, more than ever, it’s imperative to provide the right assistance and training.”
The calls for shared sacrifice in a challenging economic environment are understandable. But it makes little sense to defund workforce training and leave those on the front lines of economic development with even fewer resources. Central Massachusetts needs these job counselors to help employers find workers with the most potential and assist job seekers develop the skills they need to be hired.
Roger Herzog is the executive director of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation. Ann Donner is program manager for the Commonwealth Workforce Coalition.
Copyright 2011, Worcester Telegram & Gazette Corp.
Hyperlink: http://www.telegram.com/article/20110323/NEWS/103230360/1020#
Report: Mass. could lose 10,000 units of affordable housing
Report: Mass. could lose 10,000 units of affordable housing
By Ann Kenda
A report from the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation says Massachusetts could lose almost 10,000 units of affordable housing over the next decade.
The report predicts a crisis in housing affordability when dozens of federally subsidized mortgages expire and owners are then allowed to convert the units to market rate housing. Affordable housing is reserved for low and moderate income families at rates they can afford.
“We know that the loss of these existing affordable rental units will exacerbate the crisis in affordable housing, both in Massachusetts and across the country,” said Roger Herzog, executive director of CEDAC, in a written statement. “The Commonwealth has done quite a bit in recent years to preserve affordable housing. The passage in 2009 by the Massachusetts Legislature of legislation to ease the challenges of expiring use, which was focused on finding effective ways to preserve publicly assisted affordable housing, has given us some tools to monitor and address the problem. But there are additional solutions that need to be contemplated on the federal level.”
Currently, families in affordable housing pay an average of $700 a month in rent. CEDAC says it’s predicted that those rates will at least double without invention, putting them out of reach for many working families.
© 2011 American City Business Journals, Inc. and its licensors.
URL: http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/news/2011/03/16/report-mass-could-lose-10000-units.html
Murray calls for worker training
Murray calls for worker training
By Mary E. Arata, marata@nashobapub.com
DEVENS — Even as the state’s unemployment rate hovers at about 9 percent, Lt. Gov. Tim Murray said yesterday that work-force needs and concerns “may not be what the media and others may lead us to believe.”
Employers need trained employees, and it’s challenging to retain them in the face of higher costs of living and wintry weather, Murray told a crowd of more than 350 people at the 8th annual Commonwealth Workforce Coalition Conference, held at the Devens Common Center.
The event, subtitled “Sharing Skills, Building Connections,” also included a series of workshops on career-related topics, including networking, career coaching and social media. Murray said the conference dovetailed nicely with the Patrick administration’s November 2007 launch of its Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness, which has a goal of ending homelessness in the commonwealth by 2013.
“If we’re going to better serve our clients, we need to make them fully aware of opportunities to partner,” Murray said.
Murray said recent statistics that indicate a slow economic recovery is “little solace to those who are not working or underemployed.” He praised the CWC for sparking ideas to fine-tune the Bay State workforce because “now, more than ever, it’s imperative to provide the right assistance and training.”
Part of yesterday’s conference was to track employment trends, Murray said.
“Not only in the next year, but five to 10 years down the road, and what collectively are we doing to prepare people?” he asked rhetorically. He said workforce development is receiving a renewed focus in the administration’s second term.
“What has always allowed us to stay ahead and competitive is that we’ve always had a well-educated workforce,” Murray said.
The lieutenant governor said requests for proposals are now being accepted from community colleges and other venues, for example, to house adult learning and career centers to help affected workers “sharpen their skills and become attractive job candidates in this very competitive market.”
The administration also endorses arming workers with an arsenal of STEM-skills (science, technology, engineering and math). Murray said STEM-centric curriculum will help in job creation in the fields of education, medicine, biotech and life sciences, manufacturing, video gaming and robotics, to name a few.
“We need to try to make sure that we’re thinking and preparing for those growth industries, from the entry level to those that require significant and advanced degrees,” said Murray.
Copyright © 2011 MediaNews Group
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