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BHA could let developer add market-rate units to Bunker Hill project
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Watch this space
Watch this space. If this is successful for both current residents and the buyers of the new market-rate apartments, it would present a powerful new strategy for public housing in Boston. Until now, the vast majority of public housing projects are either a) still maintain the heavy, isolating form favored in the 50s-70s or b) have undergone Hope VI renovations, which while an improvement still change little about dwindling funding and public support for public housing programs.
If the Bunker Hill flip to market-rate apartments with low-income residencies included succeeds for both groups, this should be the new model for Boston as it goes forward - it would certainly go a long way if applied to the cavernous stretch isolating Dudley and Lower Roxbury from the South End in terms of both creating a new market for housing close to the economic activity of downtown/Back Bay and offer a solution the long-standing fears of lower-income residents being pushed out of 'gentrifying' communities .
Who would pay market-rate
To live in a housing project? Its a horrible idea/investment as any purchaser would have enormous trouble trying resell their property.
It won't be a housing project any more
At least not in the traditional sense. Think Harbor Point, formerly Columbia Point, in Dorchester.
The developer won't just be sticking market-rate units in there - part of the plan is to upgrade the existing buildings. See Washington-Beech in Roslindale for an example of how that can be done.
As to why this idea is even possible now, well, Charlestown is in the Boston market-rate bubble, where every last piece of land, every single dilapidated garage and falling apart old gas station is considered ripe for development.
Even if you freshen up how it
Even if you freshen up how it looks it'll still be full of the social ills of a housing project. Unless they're flipping a good 50% of the units to market rate, bringing the income mix into levels where the poverty concentration effect isn't as strong, I'm not sure how this is supposed to work.
Visit Columbia Point
Oops, I mean Harbor Point. There's a book on the transformation, A Decent Place to Live. The main gripe of the tenants after the reconstruction was that they could not buy and gain equity, so they were forced to either remain renters or move. This plan would not have that problem.
When people have ownership stake, things change.
Mission main
Also Mission Main in Mission Hill.
Possibly
I somewhat share your skepticism, though right now there are 'market rate' houses, condos and apartments across the street from these projects, and people have no problem buying and selling those.
By definition, people will
By definition, people will pay market-rate for market-rate housing.
But they'll probably get bought by investors and rented out.
Rentals, not condos
Unless I missed something, the Globe article only mentioned market-rate rentals - not purchases. So investment and reselling don't apply.
And a later comment mentioning HOAs is similarly irrelevant.
Timeframe
This sounds like a terrific idea for everyone involved (and those who live nearby). This is the first I've heard of the plan though. I question the 2 to 3 year time frame.
Great idea!
I know more than a few people in that area who would welcome the new avenues of income!
Yes, those newly minted apartments should really give the new arrivals a flavor of real urban living. I'm sure some of them will get to know their apartment insurance carrier real well.
No only Insurance cost and the
question of insurability. How would HOA fees work, you can't expect someone who cant afford to pay rent pay their fair share of HOA's.
HOA?
HOA fees are not in question here, neither is the question of individual "resale" as this is not for-sale housing, pre- or post-upgrades.
The scope described here is a conversion from a BHA-owned 100% for-rent, public housing project to a (TBD) mix of affordable and market-rate units. Affordability restrictions on the low income units likely be determined by HUD and available at 30% and 50% of Area Median Income. I would imagine that the BHA determines the affordability presently, but mention is made of HUD financing and/or rent subsidy programs, which would be something akin to a HOPE IV program, as with Old Colony or the South End, or the HUD RAD program, which the Cambridge Housing Authority is currently using to convert all of their public housing to essentially public-private, Section 8 housing. In either case, it's a way to get funding for housing projects that are 100% publicly funded, although none of those I mentioned include market rate housing.
As funding for non-private housing project dries up, local housing authorities are being creative with financing structures, HUD and otherwise, and the inclusion of market-rate units here strikes me as another way to inject money into upgrades to mid-century (and prior) vintage housing projects. There would likely be low income housing tax credits used as well and a private developer that would share in the profits.