Category: CEDAC

Congressman, Officials Inaugurate Saint Polycarp Affordable Housing Project

June 25, 2012
Congressman, Officials Inaugurate Saint Polycarp Affordable Housing Project
Rep. Michael Capuano joined city and state officials Monday to officially open Saint Polycarp Village Phase II, which has 29 units of affordable rental housing.
By Chris Orchard

Rep. Michael Capuano, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and a slate of other officials conducted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday to officially open Saint Polycarp Village Phase II, a $10 million section of Saint Polycarp Village.
Saint Polycarp Village is a $30 million affordable housing community in Winter Hill, built along Mystic Avenue by the Somerville Community Corporation.
The community, now close to being finished, sits on the former Saint Polycarp Parish land once owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.
Phase I of the project, with 24 rental units, was completed in 2009, and Phase II, which Capuano was celebrating Monday, opened in February and has 29 rental units.
Construction on Phase III of the project, the final phase, will begin this fall and should be complete by 2013, according to Danny LeBlanc, CEO of the Somerville Community Corporation. When it’s done, the affordable housing community will have 84 units of affordable rental units along with green space, retail space and a playground. The development also preserved the Saint Polycarp Church structure.
“I think most people have forgotten the connection between the federal government and their daily lives,” Capuano said Monday, adding it’s hard to forget that connection at a place like Saint Polycarp. “Almost every penny [of these projects] starts at the federal level,” he said.
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, also speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, said the project has “transformed the neighborhood … it’s really nice to see this transformation.”
The two joined Undersecretary Aaron Gornstein of the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development at Monday’s ribbon-cutting.
Other speakers included Ward 4 Alderman Tony Lafuente—who said, “It’s wonderful to see what’s happened in this block. I remember it as a block of overgrowth”—Tom Gleason of MassHousing, Victor Sostar of First Sterling Financial, Clark Ziegler of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, Mike Rosenberg of Bank of America, Roger Herzog of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation and Bob Van Meter of Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

Copyright © 2012 Patch. All Rights Reserved.
URL: http://somerville.patch.com/articles/congressman-officials-inaugurate-saint-polycarp-affordable-housing-project-photos#c

SourceSomerville Patch

Congressman, Officials Inaugurate Saint Polycarp Affordable Housing Project

June 25, 2012
Congressman, Officials Inaugurate Saint Polycarp Affordable Housing Project
Rep. Michael Capuano joined city and state officials Monday to officially open Saint Polycarp Village Phase II, which has 29 units of affordable rental housing.
By Chris Orchard

Rep. Michael Capuano, Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone and a slate of other officials conducted a ribbon-cutting ceremony Monday to officially open Saint Polycarp Village Phase II, a $10 million section of Saint Polycarp Village.
Saint Polycarp Village is a $30 million affordable housing community in Winter Hill, built along Mystic Avenue by the Somerville Community Corporation.
The community, now close to being finished, sits on the former Saint Polycarp Parish land once owned by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston.
Phase I of the project, with 24 rental units, was completed in 2009, and Phase II, which Capuano was celebrating Monday, opened in February and has 29 rental units.
Construction on Phase III of the project, the final phase, will begin this fall and should be complete by 2013, according to Danny LeBlanc, CEO of the Somerville Community Corporation. When it’s done, the affordable housing community will have 84 units of affordable rental units along with green space, retail space and a playground. The development also preserved the Saint Polycarp Church structure.
“I think most people have forgotten the connection between the federal government and their daily lives,” Capuano said Monday, adding it’s hard to forget that connection at a place like Saint Polycarp. “Almost every penny [of these projects] starts at the federal level,” he said.
Somerville Mayor Joseph Curtatone, also speaking at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, said the project has “transformed the neighborhood … it’s really nice to see this transformation.”
The two joined Undersecretary Aaron Gornstein of the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development at Monday’s ribbon-cutting.
Other speakers included Ward 4 Alderman Tony Lafuente—who said, “It’s wonderful to see what’s happened in this block. I remember it as a block of overgrowth”—Tom Gleason of MassHousing, Victor Sostar of First Sterling Financial, Clark Ziegler of the Massachusetts Housing Partnership, Mike Rosenberg of Bank of America, Roger Herzog of the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation and Bob Van Meter of Local Initiatives Support Corporation.

Copyright © 2012 Patch. All Rights Reserved.
URL: http://somerville.patch.com/articles/congressman-officials-inaugurate-saint-polycarp-affordable-housing-project-photos#c

SourceSomerville Patch

CEDAC NOT Mentioned: Ribbon cutting for Bowers Brook Apartments

Ribbon cutting for Bowers Brook Apartments
By Mary E. Arata, marata@nashobapub.com
Posted: 06/18/2012 02:58:52 PM EDT

HARVARD – Official ribbon-cutting ceremonies took place on Wednesday, June 13 for the new Bowers Brook Apartments at 196 Ayer Road. The architect-designed project is located in the Ayer Road Village District zone in Harvard, which encouraged the development of mixed use housing with affordable inventory.
What resulted is a mixed use park, including retail stores and office space. At the end of the shared driveway is the 42 unit Bowers Brook building, providing 55+ housing for seniors. There are 26 one-bedroom units and 16 two-bedroom apartment units.
The maximum rent is $965 for a one-bedroom apartment and $1,195 for a two-bedroom apartment which includes all utilities.
Each unit comes equipped with individually controlled heat and air-conditioning, stainless steel appliances (stove, refrigerator, microwave and dishwasher), hardwood floors and handicapped accessible bathrooms and shower stalls. There is an elevator for upper floor access, a community room, and on-site laundry facilities. Artwork from Larry Powers Gallery of Acton adorns the hallways.
There’s onsite parking for residents and visitors. The development created by Lou Russo of L.D. Russo of Harvard is located immediately off Route 2 at exit 38B on Ayer Road in the new building located behind the building housing Dunkin’ Donuts. The building is located three miles from the commuter rail train stop in downtown Ayer.
There was public and private financing for the project including a $1,979,036 subsidy from the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), channeling federal HOME Investment Partnerships Program monies. In addition there was $756,000 in federal low income housing tax credits.
The project was also made possible in part thanks to a $200,000 zero-interest loan provided by the Harvard Municipal Affordable Housing Trust (MAHT).
Russo recalled his first visit to the Harvard Planning Board in October 2008. Since then, Russo recalled a steady stream of meetings with the Planning Board, Conservation Commission, Board of Health, Board of Selectmen, and Building Inspector Gabe Vellante. Russo thanked local officials and Town Administrator Timothy Bragan for their assistance with the project.
“The highlight for us is getting to know our neighbors,” said Russo of Chuck, Linda and Randy Yanikoski of Lancaster County Road.
The financing closing took place in March 2011. A year later, the doors opened to tenants. Russo thanked his staff for its “hard work and dedication is responsible for our timely construction.”
Russo thanked the throngs of state and federal agencies, firms and individuals involved in making the project a reality, including his wife Cindy Russo, who provided both legal guidance “and unwavering support for this project.”
Russo called Mort Miller of the quasi-public Harvard Municipal Affordable Housing Trust a “consistent champion of Bowers Brook.” Miller said the project will “move Harvard closer to the state-mandated goal of 10 percent affordable housing.”
In order to block dense Chapter “40B” housing projects, Harvard must have at least 10 percent affordable housing. Currently only 5.4 percent, or 108 homes, are counted as Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI) among Harvard’s 1,982 housing units counted in the 2010 U.S. Census. All 42 units will chip away at the town’s affordable housing deficit.
“So long as we make progress towards this goal, the town can be more selective,” among any proposed future development, said Miller. “It’s truly a win-win situation.”
Miller praised Russo for overcoming “insurmountable hurdles” in untangling septic and water service issues with the site. But Miller said Russo was a local developer “with a proven record” who got the work done.
Miller said the trust made a “modest investment” in the form of the no-interest loan which amounts to less than $5,000 per unit yet “I heard complaints about that also.” Miller expressed vindication, though, as there were 26 of the 42 units leased as of last week, with 12 more tenancies pending.
Over the 27 years that he’s lived in Harvard, Miller said he’d been involved in several efforts to bring affordable housing to Harvard. “This was, in many ways, the most successful.”
As the audience sat sheltered under a white tent in the front parking lot, selectman Ron Ricci joked that detail-oriented Russo planned the rainfall that day to “further enhance the lawn.” Ricci said the project has been a blessing for some seniors that are downsizing and wished to remain in town, while also providing housing for new residents who wish to live near their Harvard loved ones. “That’s a good thing,” said Ricci.
Ricci said he was thanked recently by a Harvard resident whose mother-in-law had just moved into a Bowers Book apartment, having relocated from Vermont. Ricci said the plaudits all belong to L.D. Russo Development, Inc. “The real credit belongs to Lou and Cindy Russo I’m not sure even Lou realized how many obstacles there was to overcome This was a complicated project. It’s not only complete, but it was completed with style. It’s really something the Town of Harvard can be proud to have.”
State Senator Jamie Eldridge co-chairs the joint committee for affordable housing. He said the project’s roots harkened back to his first term as senator “for an idea of the breadth of this project.” The DHCP funding, and tax credits, were well spent as the state battles “the biggest barrier to Massachusetts’ economic development – housing costs.”
“I want to commend Lou and Cindy on their vision and this whole complex,” said Eldridge. “It really adds a lot to Harvard and the region.”
DHCD Deputy Undersecretary Arthur Jemison, a native of Amherst, said “I’m a small-town Massachusetts boy myself.”
“I know in a town like this, it’s really a group effort,” said Jemison. “We appreciate you sticking to it and bringing everyone together. This is just 42 units of the 9,000 affordable housing units that the Patrick Administration has invested in since 2007. It’s a big number. We’re proud of every one of them.”
North Middlesex Savings Bank provided loan financing. President and CEO William Marshall said Russo launched the development during a time of great financial uncertainty. “Financial institutions in general, [at least] according to the media, stopped lending,” Marshall said. Marshall said the Bowers Brook project “makes a statement” and flies in the face of those false assertions.
“Lou and Cindy had the economic environment necessary to follow through on a project like this,” said Marshall. North Middlesex Savings Bank “continues to care for the community and has continued to lend in this environment for this area to prosper.”
And loan guarantees were provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development office. USDA State Director Jonathan Healy said his agency is more than “inspecting pork bellies” and plays a hand in housing projects in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Healy called Bowers Brook “a stellar project.”
The USDA provided an 80 percent guarantee behind the $3.8 million NMSB loan. Healy said “all these little pieces can fit together” to cobble financing for these projects.
The tax credits were bundled into an investment portfolio managed by Boston Capital Advisors and purchased by Berkshire Hathaway, said Russo. That came together thanks to both kismet and coffee.
Scott Arrighi, Vice President of Acquisitions for Boston Capital Advisors LLC said he lives in the area and hops off of Route 2 to buy coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts. “Little did I know I’d be staring over the future site of Bowers Brook.” Later he’d heard of the tax credit award to Russo and touched base to purchase the credits. “I’d never met him before.”
Arrighi said he did initially receive some “push back” to investing in Harvard’s housing stock. “Harvard, Massachusetts?” Arrighi said he was queried. “You really want to put affordable housing in Harvard, Massachusetts?’ We said absolutely.”
Dan Barton, a principal architect at Maguel Associates located next door in the office park, said the firm was happy to play a part in the project. “It’s wonderful to get to create and don’t have to worry about the financing.” Barton said the housing is a “24/7 component that breathes life” into the complex.
Stewart Property Management operates the facility and is handling the application process. For more information call (978) 456-7300 or visit www.BowersBrook.com.
Follow Mary Arata at Twitter.com/maryearata or Facebook.com/mary.arata.
Copyright © 2012 MediaNews Group
URL: http://www.nashobapublishing.com/harvard_news/ci_20882554/ribbon-cutting-bowers-brook-apartments#ixzz1yLUhWdeV

SourceNashoba Publishing

New apartments to be called ‘Water Mill’

Wednesday, June 13, 2012
New apartments to be called ‘Water Mill’
The former Whitney & Company building on the corner of Water and Whitney streets, being transformed into 40 apartments, will be called Water Mill Apartments.
Officials unveiled the name at a Monday ceremony, which included Congressman John Olver, D-Mass., and numerous other elected officials. The ambitious project, expected to be complete by September, includes affordable 1-, 2- 3- and 4-bedroom apartments.
According to Marc Dohan, executive director of the Twin Cities CDC, which is managing the project, coming up with a name was a challenge. “We wanted a name that reflected the long and proud history of the building, as well as one that was easy to remember.”
Brothers Fred and Walter Whitney built the original structure in 1893 to accommodate their growing box manufacturing company. Over the ensuing decade, several large additions were added to the building. At the turn of the 20th century, the city’s two major box makers, E.F. Dodge & Co. and Whitney & Company, employed upwards of 200 people. The building was last used as a manufacturing facility in 1961.
Monthly rents for the LEED-certified apartments, which must meet minimum standards for the design, construction and operation of a high performance green building, will range from approximately $640 to $770, depending on the size of the unit. Some units will be based on a tenant’s income.
The property manager for Water Mill Apartments is Wingate Companies, which can be reached at (978) 840-1420.
Funders and partners for the project include: City of Leominster— Fitchburg-Leominster, HOME Consortium; Office of Congressman John Olver, through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development; The Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development; HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME), Housing Stabilization Funds, CDBG-NSP Program, Community Development Action Grant; Massachusetts Historical Commission; MassHousing, Massachusetts Affordable Housing Trust Fund; MassDevelopment; National Park Service; Neighborworks® America; Massachusetts Housing Investment Corporation; TD Bank; Avidia Bank; Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation, Community Based Housing, Predevelopment and Acquisition funding; Massachusetts Brownfields Tax Credits; Energy Rebates—Massachusetts Multifamily New Construction Pilot; Twin Cities Community Development Corporation; Davis Square Architects; Dellbrook Construction and Wingate Companies.

Copyright 2006-2012, the Holden Landmark Corp.
http://www.leominsterchamp.com/news/2012-06-15/Your_City/New_apartments_to_be_called_Water_Mill.html

SourceLeominster Champion

CEDAC NOT MENTIONED: Funding is a go for more Westhampton senior housing

Monday, June 11, 2012
Funding is a go for more Westhampton senior housing
By Lily Bouvier
Gazette Contributing Writer

WESTHAMPTON — Funding is now in place for a second phase of the Westhampton Woods senior housing project.
On May 9 the Hilltown Community Development Corporation announced that the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development had awarded $800,000 for the construction of eight new units at Westhampton Woods. That will bring the total number of residential units to 15. Work is scheduled to begin late this year or early in 2013.
The project has also received $280,000 from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston.
Westhampton Woods, located off Route 66 just past the Northampton line, provides affordable housing to people 62 and older. Rents for the new units are expected to be $673 per month, including utilities, and two units will be subsidized under the federal Section 8 program.
Phase I of the development was built in 2005 and includes seven energy-efficient apartments, along with a community room used for socializing as well as meetings of area organizations.
The new construction is a response to high demand for Westhampton Woods units. More than 30 people are on a waiting list, according to the Hilltown CDC.
In 2008 the organization conducted a feasibility study about expanding Westhampton Woods. It used a Community Development Block Grant to develop preliminary plans for a second phase.
The Hilltown CDC received the Federal Home Loan Bank funds for the expansion in December 2011. The recent award from the state completes the budget for the project, said Dave Christopolis, the organization’s executive director.
A date for the completion of the Phase II construction has not been determined.
The Hilltown CDC is also considering improvements to the existing Westhampton Woods complex, said Christopolis, including installation of a generator in the community room to provide heat and water in case of power losses. Residents of the complex were without power for a week during last October’s snowstorm.
The Hilltown CDC serves the Hampshire County communities of Ashfield, Chesterfield, Cummington, Goshen, Huntington, Middlefield, Plainfield, Westhampton, Williamsburg and Worthington, as well as several towns in Berkshire and Hampden counties.
Christopolis said the Hilltown CDC gets frequent calls inquiring about senior housing, and it is looking into building units in Chesterfield and Goshen. The agency is conducting surveys to determine interest and need and surveying possible sites. Decisions on these projects are expected by the end of this year.

Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2011
http://www.gazettenet.com/2012/06/11/funding-is-a-go-for-more-westhampton-senior-housing

SourceGazetteNet - Daily Hampshire Gazette

New Right of First Refusal Law Preserves Affordable Housing in Cambridge, MA

On February 8th, the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC) was pleased to celebrate with its preservation partners the dedication of Chapman Arms, a 50-unit building located in Cambridge’s busy Harvard Square, as the first affordable housing to be preserved through the state’s right of first refusal – an important provision of the state’s innovative Chapter 40T law… Click here to read more. https://cedac.org/NewsletterAffHsngMay2012.html

SourceNational Housing Trust Newsletter, May 9, 2012

CEDACNotMentioned: Jamaica Plain’s Jackson Square — its moment has arrived

OPINION
May 08, 2012
Jamaica Plain’s Jackson Square — its moment has arrived
By Paul McMorrow
This weekend, community activists, politicians, and developers will converge on Jackson Square in Jamaica Plain. They will celebrate the imminent emergence of structural steel in the square. The stated reason for this weekend’s party is construction of a 103-unit apartment building. But the celebration is really about the triumph over urban renewal.
For more than 50 years, outdated transportation policy shaped the neighborhoods around Jackson Square. When that steel rises above 225 Centre Street, Jackson Square will finally begin being shaped by something other than a highway. It will be shaped by community development. It will finally get back to being a real place.
Jackson Square was a legitimate square for the first half of the 1900s, with shops and factories standing alongside working-class housing. That ended when city and state transportation planners began pushing plans to run an elevated highway, the Southwest Expressway, through the neighborhood.
Today, the square is more of an intersection than a square. City squares are clusters of buildings and hubs of activity; Jackson Square is the name of an Orange Line station, and also a barren spot where seven lanes of traffic collide with another five.
In the 1950s and 1960s, the Boston area was littered with highway construction plans — genuine, if failed, attempts to rescue the city from decades of economic stagnation and declining population. Roxbury and Jamaica Plain bore the brunt of land clearance efforts. Thousands of homes and businesses were razed. Blight radiated from the planned highway routes. Scars in the landscape still run from the Southeast Expressway to Ruggles, and then down to Forest Hills.
Jamaica Plain and Roxbury once met in Jackson Square; now, they’re separated by a vacant, impassable no-mans land. Highway clearance imposed an architecture that continues to promote economic disinvestment.
The new apartment building at the corner of Centre and Columbus — 225 Centre Street — is the first phase of a decade-long, $250 million effort to rebuild Jackson Square. The whole effort will re-knit Jamaica Plain to Roxbury.
A straight line runs from the early anti-highway activism in Jamaica Plain and Roxbury, through the construction of the Orange Line, and to the contemporary redevelopment of Jackson Square. At all three stages of the 50-year effort, local activists formed broad coalitions, engaged in proactive planning, and knew that saying no wasn’t good enough. The activists won because they didn’t just oppose poor land use — they articulated an alternative vision.
Early on, they demanded the same sort of highway more powerful Boston neighborhoods were getting — subsurface, not elevated. That morphed into calls to mothball the highway altogether, in favor of mass transit in the form of the Orange Line, and public open space that became Southwest Corridor Park.
Neighborhood activists have been guiding the current redevelopment effort for more than a decade — ever since Kmart tried building on a vacant lot in Jackson. The community rallied together, opposed the big-box development, and then sketched out exactly what it wanted built instead. The neighborhoods drew up plans for their own redevelopment, and then put the concept out to bid. Three non-profit builders — the Community Builders, Urban Edge, and the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation — answered the bell. But these builders are just vessels carrying a larger, community-directed vision.
Looking back at the Kmart battle, Bart Mitchell, CEO of The Community Builders, says, “It would have been a shame, to have not taken advantage of this part of the city.” Instead of settling for any building, the neighborhood held out for transformative development. And now, 50 years since the bulldozers began rolling in, and 25 years after the Orange Line opened, Jackson Square’s moment has arrived.
Mitchell’s development at 225 Centre will mix retail and community uses with subsidized and market-rate housing. It will embody the diversity of the neighborhoods around it, and, he hopes, set a marker for the redevelopment work to follow. “I’m not necessarily an advocate for things going slowly,” Mitchell says, “but I like when they get done right.”
Paul M. McMorrow is an associate editor at CommonWealth Magazine. His column appears regularly in the Globe.

URL: http://bostonglobe.com/opinion/2012/05/08/jamaica-plain-jackson-square-its-moment-has-arrived/nRmi9zu6plxgObnS4C92gO/story.html
© 2012 The New York Times Compan

SourceBoston Globe Opinion Section

Hilltown CDC loan key to affordable housing grant

Monday, April 30, 2012
Hilltown CDC loan key to affordable housing grant
By THE DAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETTE
Staff Writer

CHESTERFIELD – The Hilltown Community Development Corporation took a step toward obtaining a $2.4 million housing grant last week when it was awarded a $75,000 pre-development loan from the Boston-based Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation.
Hilltown CDC’s housing director, Paul Lishcetti, said landing the loan is key to being able to apply for a grant from the Department of Housing and Community Development for housing developments in Williamsburg and Chesterfield.
“We are just crossing our fingers that we get the grant, ” he said.
The assistance corporation is a community development finance institution that provides technical assistance and loans to non-profits for housing.
Before pursuing the grant from the state, the Hilltown agency must provide pre-development specifications such as architectural, technical and legal information. The $75,000 will fund this research.
The money will be used in part to help create five units for homeless households, including the first three units in the Hilltown region specifically reserved for homeless families and two units for homeless veterans. “There is a four-unit rental property on South Street in Haydenville that we are interested in buying,” Lishcetti, said. “The other properties that will be remodeled or rehabilitated are 13 South Main St., and 148 Main St. in Haydenville, and 12 Williams St. in Williamsburg. Each of those properties has three rental units.
Lishcetti said the CDC also hopes to add a unit to a building at 397 Main Road in Chesterfield which currently has 7 units.
Lishcetti said his agency has seen a marked increase in people with lower incomes over the past few years who are in danger of becoming homeless.
“More people are now in need of lower-income housing. Prior to 2008, I have no recollection of people coming in and saying they are about to be foreclosed on,” he said. “We are also seeing a lot more homeless vets that we are renting to.”
Over the last several years, the Hilltown agency has developed 17 new or rehabilitated homes in the Hilltowns. The agency owns 30 units of rental housing in the Hilltowns including apartments in renovated buildings in Haydenville, Williamsburg, Chesterfield and Huntington.
“Many people think that there really is no problem with homelessness in the Hilltowns because people typically end up in shelters in other towns like Northampton or in other communities,” he said. “This is all part of an effort to help the people with the greatest needs in the Hilltowns.”

Daily Hampshire Gazette © 2011
URL: http://www.gazettenet.com/2012/04/30/hilltown-cdc-loan-key-to-affordable-housing-grant

SourceDaily Hampshire Gazette

Foreclosed Fall River property becomes homes for low-income residents

April 17, 2012
Foreclosed Fall River property becomes homes
for low-income residents
By Deborah Allard
FALL RIVER —People have started moving into the new Eagle Community Care Estates, a rehabilitated 17-unit complex of permanent affordable housing created specifically for veterans, homeless families and people with low income.
The Eagle Street property had been in foreclosure. Community Care Services refurbished the complex, providing residences for people in need while preventing further blight in the neighborhood.
“A lot of people need housing,” said Thomas Fisher, president and CEO of Community Care Services. The Taunton-based social service agency offers behavioral health services, residential programs for foster children, housing placement and more. Ppening an affordable housing complex is a brand new endeavor — a project outside the norm for an agency such as Community Care Services.
“This is a long time coming,” Fisher said. “This is a very different world than social services.”
Community Care Services partnered with the Women’s Institute to learn more about housing and economic development. Then it became involved with Community Economic Development Assistant Corporation for funding — the same company that worked with St. Dominic’s Apartments and is currently working with the YMCA to create affordable housing.
“This was an interesting program,” said Roger Herzog, executive director of CEDAC. “We encourage these partnerships. It’s really rare to have one organization who can do it all.”
The new Eagle Community Care Estates cost about $3.5 million. It is made up of three buildings with a common courtyard. It offers remodeled two- and three-bedroom units, and will have an on-site case manager to work with residents who need various services.
Tenants will pay 30 percent of their income. Veterans will be given preference for eight of the 17 units, while the remainder will house Fall River residents and homeless families.
“This is really an important program for Fall River,” Herzog said.
Dave Souza|Herald News
The property at 159 Eagle St. has been renovated for use as residences for low-income residents.
Funding and help came from a variety of sources, including CEDAC, the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development, MassHousing, the Home Funders, Bridgewater State Bank, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston, Franklin Square House Foundation, Charlesbank Homes Foundation, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the city of Fall River.
Fisher said Community Care Services has provided a shelter program in Attleboro for the past 25 years. Ten years ago, it became involved in ways to prevent homelessness. “The need is just amazing,” Fisher said.
He said Community Care Services will be able to provide housing for tenants who were homeless or in jeopardy of losing their homes, and can also offer them other services, like education, employment, and substance abuse programs.
“They can put down roots,” Fisher said. “It will allow them to establish goals.”
For information about Eagle Community Care Estates and an application for housing, visit or call 508-821-7777.
Email Deborah Allard at dallard@heraldnews.com.
URL: http://www.heraldnews.com/archive/x304762707/Foreclosed-Fall-River-property-becomes-homes-for-low-income-residents#ixzz1sOrKoNRJ
Copyright 2012 The Herald News. Some rights reserved

SourceThe Herald News

Second Expiring-Use Development Preserved As Affordable Housing In Cambridge

Friday, April 13, 2012, 11:10am
Second Expiring-Use Development Preserved As Affordable Housing In Cambridge
By Colleen M. Sullivan
The former Norstin Apartments near Central Square in Cambridge will be preserved as affordable housing through an $8 million deal between the Community Economic Development Assistance Corporation (CEDAC), the city of Cambridge, and Cambridge-based housing non-profit Just A Start Corp.
The 4-story property lies between Bishop Allen Drive and Norfolk Street in Cambridge, has 32 two- and three-bedroom units, and will be renamed the Bishop Allen Apartments in the wake of the purchase. The city was particularly anxious to preserve it since demand for affordable housing with multi-bedroom units considerably outstrips supply, sources familiar with the project told Banker and Tradesman.
“[Cambridge] is really committed to making sure their affordable housing is preserved over the long-term,” Roger Herzog, CEDAC’s executive director, told Banker and Tradesman.
CEDAC provided a loan in the amount of $4.3 million. The Cambridge Affordable Housing Trust provided approximately $4,000,000. The city of Cambridge added additional funds to cover carrying costs and predevelopment expenses.
The apartments are the second expiring-use project to be preserved in Cambridge. Earlier this year, the city and CEDAC, along with Homeowner’s Rehab Inc. were also involved in a deal to preserve the Chapman Arms in Harvard Square.
Both deals demonstrate the impact of the 40T statute passed by the state in 2009, Herzog argues. The law gives the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) the right of first refusal when a project that had been affordable housing is eligible to be sold or converted to market rate. The Chapman Arms project was the first where DHCD exercised that right.
“It’s two ways that 40T is working. In Chapman [Arms], we saw it work under the provision that allows DHCD to exercise a right of first refusal. In Norsten, we see an alternative approach,” said Herzog. The owners of the Bishop Allen buildings, aware that the city of Cambridge wanted to preserve the property as affordable housing, sought out the non-profit Just A Start himself and pitched the project to them.
Since putting it in Just A Start’s hands would preserve affordability, he was able to obtain an exemption from review of the sale by DHCD, Herzog said. “Either way, the project is preserved as affordable housing,” he added. “40T is making an impact.”
URL: http://www.bankerandtradesman.com/news149559.html
Banker & Tradesman ©2012 All Rights Reserved

SourceBanker & Tradesman