BOSTON, MA - The development of affordable housing remains fairly strong in area communities, officials say, but they also note there has been a noticeable slowdown in the sale and rental of the income-restricted units. "The overall economic climate, including the impact of the subprime mortgage and foreclosure situation, has definitely affected the production of affordable housing, but there is still a need and demand for it," said Philip Hailer, spokesman for the state's Department of Housing and Community Development.
Under its comprehensive permit law, Chapter 40B, the state encourages communities to have at least 10 percent of their overall housing stock qualify as affordable to individuals or families making 80 percent or less of the area's median income. In communities that fall short of the threshold, housing developments filed under 40B can avoid most local zoning re strictions if roughly 25 percent of the units are set aside for rent or sale under affordable guidelines.
Hailer said the mortgage-foreclosure crisis has affected home-ownership developments more than rental projects, but towns report difficulties for both, particularly in the past year. In Wellesley, where the affordable housing stock stands at 5.5 percent, several projects have met with mixed success, according to Thomas Schnorr, chairman of the Wellesley Housing Development Corporation's board of directors.
Last year, 45 people took part in the town agency's lottery to purchase either an affordable unit in the converted Walnut Street fire station or a refurbished affordable three-family home on Highland Road, Schnorr said. On Walnut Street, while "the two market-rate units got held up in the same slowdown in the housing market" that everyone else is experiencing, he said, the affordable unit sold almost immediately.
But that doesn't mean that the town hasn't encountered difficulties in getting tenants or buyers into affordable units. On Highland Road, the town got as far as starting to negotiate a purchase-and-sale agreement, but the family ultimately backed out of the deal. "The lottery agent said that it's not uncommon in home ownership projects because, even when the units are priced to be affordable, it's still a huge investment for a family not making a whole lot of money," Schnorr said.
The challenge is not limited to the most-expensive communities. In Franklin, where 10.3 percent of the housing is considered affordable, the town has run into similar difficulties, said Maxine Kinhart, assistant to the town administrator. With the Residences at Union Place, an apartment complex off Interstate 495 and King Street that has 25 percent of its 300 units set aside as affordable, "we had anticipated that the location would be conducive to filling these units," Kinhart said.
But while the market-rate units have been popular, the affordable units "have not been easy to fill, and we still have vacancies one or two years later," she said. "The current market has had an effect on everything that trickles down to the affordable units and, over the past year or two, we have had a number of developments that have just languished." Kinhart's take on the situation? "You can go almost anywhere and rent an apartment for less," she said.
In order to qualify for an affordable unit, a family cannot make more than 80 percent of the median income for the area, but units are not supposed to be priced above what would be affordable to a family making 70 percent of the median. "One of the inherent issues in developing and selling home-ownership units is that there is a really small sliver of people who are income-eligible and have enough income to qualify for the mortgage and really be able to afford it," Wellesley official Schnorr said.
Kinhart points to another p
Source: Boston.com