Brandywyne Village, a 402-unit property in East Boston, is listed on a database of expiring-use properties in Massachusetts. The owner of another expiring-use property, Florence Apartments in Roslindale, has agreed to continue accepting Section 8 federal rental assistance vouchers after announcing last year that he would no longer do so.
Low-income tenants who were facing eviction from a Roslindale apartment complex can stay put.
The owner of the property, Francis Colannino, has agreed to continue accepting Section 8 federal rental assistance vouchers.
Colannino, owner of the 138-unit Florence Apartments, has extended the Section 8 contract he had with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for another five years. The contract was due to expire this April.
“Extending the contract is a victory for the tenants,” said Roxan McKinnon, executive director of City Life/Vida Urbana in Jamaica Plain.
City Life/Vida Urbana, a community group, and the Southwest Community Development Corp. in Roslindale worked to organize Florence tenants when Colannino announced last year that he wasn’t going to continue participating in the HUD program. Tenants rallied and marched to Roslindale Square last year to protest and urge Colannino to negotiate with them.
Several groups and city leaders, including Mayor Thomas M. Menino, urged Colannino to renew the contract and there was a public hearing on the issue in November.
The Jamaica Plain Gazette reported earlier this month that the owner was in negotiations with HUD. A total of 125 units include vouchers. About 80 percent of Florence tenants are Latino, according to Steve Meacham, City Life’s tenant organizing coordinator.
“Florence is a major source of affordable housing for families of color and Latinos in particular,” said Meacham.
About seven years ago, Colannino announced that he wasn’t extending the Section 8 contract at another Boston apartment complex. Tenants of Forestvale, a 108-unit development in Jamaica Plain, and City Life pushed Colannino to preserve the affordable units. After a lengthy battle, Colannino ultimately signed another Section 8 contract through 2010.
Forestvale tenants were watching to see if Colannino extended the contract at Florence. “Everybody at Forestvale saw the renewal of Florence as key to protecting their [own apartments],” Meacham said.
Both Florence and Forestvale are known as expiring-use properties. Expiring-use apartments were privately built using time-limited federal and state subsidies. The properties include apartments with below-market-rate rents. But once the subsidized mortgages are paid off, the owners have the option of increasing rents.
More than 5,000 affordable units have been changed to market-rate rentals since 1998, according to the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations (MACDC). Nearly 22,000 units throughout Massachusetts are at risk of becoming market-rate in the next two years, according to a 2007 database maintained by the Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association.
MACDC, the Boston Tenant Coalition and CHAPA have been urging legislators to pass a measure to preserve affordability at expiring-use properties.
