Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series examining smart-growth and affordable-housing developments recently selected by the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association to receive grants under the organization’s Smart Growth Demonstration Initiative.
City officials in Chelsea are hoping to transform a former industrial neighborhood near downtown into a vibrant residential area that features various types of new housing.
The city is in the process of planning studies for several city neighborhoods that are in transition and located on the boundaries of residential areas, according to John DePriest, director of planning for Chelsea.
In particular, city officials have set their sights on the Garrish Avenue neighborhood, an old mill area that includes a large box factory destroyed by fire several years ago and a building once occupied by a mattress company that relocated. The plan is to redevelop the area, a 24-acre site, into a residential neighborhood.
DePriest said City Manager Jay Ash has set the goal of creating up to 1,200 housing units over four years. “The demand for family ownership housing is great, but we’re looking at all [housing] options,” DePriest said.
The city’s efforts recently received a boost when it was awarded a $20,000 grant to hire a consultant to review and analyze the neighborhood’s zoning as well as identify any zoning or policy changes that need to be adopted to encourage the development of affordable housing.
Chelsea was one of seven communities and organizations to receive such technical assistance grants from the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, or CHAPA, to implement smart-growth and affordable-housing development strategies. MassHousing, a quasi-public state agency, provided funding for the CHAPA initiative.
CHAPA selected projects across Massachusetts to serve as models for creating development that incorporates affordable housing while maximizing open space and preserving environmental resources, increasing access to public transit and utilizing existing infrastructure. Such development projects are usually identified as good examples of smart growth.
In Chelsea, the demand for family housing that’s affordable to people earning 50 percent to 100 percent of the area median income is high, said DePriest. The city is hoping that at least 15 percent of the units that are created in the Garrish Avenue neighborhood are affordable to low- and moderate-income households.
The redevelopment of the Garrish Avenue neighborhood will likely involve nonprofit community development groups. However, the city has received proposals primarily from private, for-profit developers for a number of different housing developments throughout the city, including market-rate and affordable housing, DePriest said.
Veteran Presence
More than 60 miles south of Chelsea, two nonprofit organizations are hoping to convert a factory into 19 apartments for Vietnam-era veterans dealing with emotional and substance-abuse issues.
Steve Dubuque, executive director of the South Shore Housing Corp., said the agency was approached by a veterans’ group in New Bedford that needed to find a more permanent solution to a problem it had identified: Many Vietnam War veterans with either substance-abuse issues or emotional problems related to their war service were cycling in and out of a local veterans’ hospital. The veterans were being treated, but once they left the hospital many ended up in halfway houses or on the streets struggling with the same challenges and problems.
Dubuque said the South Shore Housing Corp. helped the veterans create a nonprofit group, Welcome Home Veterans Housing, to pursue funding to create housing with support services. With the help of a low-interest loan from Citizens Bank, the groups were able to purchase a sweater factory building in New Bedford. In addition, they obtained a loan for predevelopment expenses from the bank, a $400,000 commitment from the city’s Community Development Office and more than $2 million from the state.
The groups also won a $10,000 grant from CHAPA that will be used to assess and help incorporate environmentally friendly “green building” technologies in the project. Dubuque said the groups are hoping the CHAPA grant will help offset the initial expense of including “green” technology, which can drive up overall construction costs.
The groups are working with the Providence, R.I.-based architectural firm Durkee Brown Viveiros & Werenfels on the green-technology aspect of the $3.3 million project. Meanwhile, Bufftree Building Co. of New Bedford was selected as the construction manager.
Onsite case management will be provided to the residents of the new housing, and they will also be able to receive counseling and other support services at a veterans’ center that is located within walking distance.
Twelve of the apartments will have rent subsidies and will be available for $647 a month, while six apartments will have non-subsidized rents of $665 per month including all utilities, according to Project Manager John Hixson. One unit will be provided rent-free to an onsite manager.
Unlike New Bedford and Chelsea, Boxford is a small suburb north of Boston with very little affordable housing. Out of the 2,700 housing units in town, only 19 are defined as affordable by the state, explained Neil Olansky, a member of Boxford’s Board of Selectmen.
Home prices in Boxford, as in many other eastern Massachusetts communities, have escalated over the last four years. The median selling price for a single-family home in Boxford reached $635,750 last year, a 35 percent increase from the $469,000 median price posted in 2000, according to The Warren Group, parent company of Banker & Tradesman. Meanwhile, the average price of a lot is about $500,000, said Olansky.
Acknowledging the lack of affordable housing, the Board of Selectmen has been trying to be more proactive in developing affordable housing. About two years ago, the town hired a consultant to analyze the town’s housing needs. The town eventually crafted a formal housing production plan that was submitted to the state. In the meantime, the Boxford Housing Partnership has been pursuing a series of grants to help with the towns’ affordable housing efforts.
But one major barrier for the town is the lack of zoning and septic-system regulations that enable multiple housing units to be located on a single lot. There is virtually no multifamily housing, and much of the town features two-acre zoning. In fact, two-acre zoning is required on lots with 250-feet frontage, but lots with less frontage must have six acres.
“We have no way of putting multiple housing on a single lot,” said Olansky, who is chairman of the Boxford Housing Partnership.
The partnership received a $5,000 grant from CHAPA. It wants to use that money to hire a consultant to develop septic-system and water regulations that would enable the construction of multiple housing units on single lots.
The housing partnership has identified a couple of dozen six-acre lots that have small homes, according to Olansky. The hope is to convince older homeowners who live in small houses on such large lots to donate their properties to the partnership so five or six affordable condominium-style units can be built on the sites, with one of the units being reserved for the homeowner who donates the property, said Olansky.
Asked whether that type of plan has been receiving community support, Olansky replied, “As long as it’s not next to them. Everybody loves affordable housing unless it’s in their backyard.”
Aglaia Pikounis may be reached at apikounis@thewarrengroup.com.
