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The public/private partnership rebuilding public housing in Boston
By adamg on Tue, 10/08/2019 - 9:00am
WBUR takes a look at how the BHA is rebuilding large public-housing developments in Boston by contracting private developers to do the work in exchange for letting them build market-rate units on BHA land.
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Comments
Somerville, too
Something similar is about to happen at Somerville's Clarendon Hill (North Street) project.
Chelsea Also
Innes Apartments, a CHA project, on Central Ave will be torn down and replaced with a new complex that will be half public housing, and the rest 'market rate'
How big of a sucker....
Would you be to buy something “market rate” to live next to someone paying $20 a month
Aw, don't worry, poor concerned person
This is hardly a new idea. Harbor Point's been around for awhile now.
Harbor Point
and surprisingly it wasn't mentioned in this article, or on the accompanying map. Wasn't it the original model for this kind of redevelopment?
There must be a lot of
There must be a lot of suckers in Boston then, because there are a lot of very expensive market rate housing directly next to subsidized and/or public housing.
Yes there are...
But imho the suckers are the people paying half a million dollars for one floor of a 3 decker. A correction will come eventually (it always does) and a lot of people may find themselves unemployed and deep under water
Maybe, maybe not
In 2008 when large portions of the country were going broke, Greater Boston's Real Estate market suffered a relatively small downturn and more than recovered quickly. People are dreaming if they think the housing market is going to drop 50% and stay that way. Things may level off and perhaps drop slightly but a radical correction isn't coming short of a war or massive civil unrest.
Maybe so
But the scenario I am describing has happened at least 4 times in my lifetime
Edit: That is not to suggest that real estate will drop 50%. It doesn't need to for people to go bankrupt
Lowering prices
It does take a disaster/slump for purchase prices to go down. I missed 2 of your 4 when I had investment money @scott.
Where the market MIGHT crash
People buying one, two and 3-family homes in Boston will always be fine. Yes their value might dip 20% (from a million to $800,000) in the next down market, but most people will be OK.
Where I think there is a bigger chance for more of a "crash" is in the luxury condo market. Obviously they are everywhere and are full of relatively new buyers or they are vacant foreign investment properties. In 5 or 10 years, when those retirees are ready to move to assisted living, and perhaps the foreigners want their cash back, there could be a glut of those units on the market, driving prices down. And once the prices start dropping, the investors will bolt, en masse, and things will really get interesting.
Not sure how old you are
but I feel like older folk (boomer+) still view triple deckers as plebe housing for the poors. Spoiler alert: its like actual luxury housing now. Rehabbed triple deckers are nicer, offer more room, a yard/porch, a better neighborhood experience, etc etc over the 10+unit brutalist monstrosities going up as condo buildings now on former toxic waste dump sites. Even the apartment buildings like the ones that line Comm Ave in Allston/Brighton were probably very nice when they were built....they are hellholes now. Such will be the way with the new developments going up everywhere now. In 20-30 years they will be run down hellholes with their pre-fab construction falling apart. Everyone gets to share a hallway and a "community room" with no place to plant a garden? SOUNDS AWESOME TAKE MY MONEY. Meanwhile the developers have long since made their fortune and fled. No. triple deckers will become revered among city dwellers. Those owning a unit in them will be considered lucky as they are torn down for more and more dense, compact housing. "Oh dear you have a YARD?! And a driveway? Gosh how lucky." This WILL happen. Even in my neighborhood in Mattapan every scrap of dirt lot and side yard is being snapped up and developed. They cram building into every last square foot possible. Yards are disappearing, which is fine but exiting ones then carry a premium.
My favorite house in all of Boston sits on the corner of Day Blvd and L street. A single story ranch house with a big front lawn among a sea of multi-families and apartment buildings. A time capsule from the 40s/50s. When that place finally sells a giant building will take its place.