stick n move
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Damn.
Housing on D Street | Massport Parcel D4 | Seaport
- Thread starter Equilibria
- Start date
Why not keep the ORIGINAL building but 100 affordable and 100 market rate?????? Build the larger, better looking building for an urban area, get the financing and have more people living in the district?????
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I don’t think a 50% market 50% affordable pencils out. The 100% affordable projects receive a substantial portion of the total financing in the form of grants from the City and the Commonwealth. Those grants are either exclusively eligible for all affordable projects or prioritized towards projects based on affordability levels and percentage. There are a lot of all affordable developers competing with a number of proposals throughout the state, so the grants are competitive.
If you want to build a 50/50 project, you lose the ability to obtain these grants, forcing the project to balance its out on its own. In these interest rate environment, even the 20% IDP requirement are preventing projects from getting started. 50% would be a DOA.
You can go down to 60% aff for many grants, iirc, which is why the no parking min's kicks in there in Boston. Point stands, though.
The interesting question is could they make it pencil at 100-120% AMI mostly? Guessing not.
If true, then the the City and Commonwealth policy (although altruistic) shoots itself in the foot - - - if they allowed 100/100 - the very same nominal amount of affordable units would be made available in a better quality building for those very tenants with more dynamic life and services (more street level local shops/services due to higher density).
So, by its policies, the City and Commonwealth Grant policies actually keep its affordable residents lifestyle quality down. That's social policy malpractice. What's shocking is we have some of the greatest urban policy thinkers in our backyard at MIT and Harvard and Tufts, yet this basic error still exists??????
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stick n move
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Thats what I was thinking too.
This part is crazy:
“If you want to build a 50/50 project, you lose the ability to obtain these grants, forcing the project to balance its out on its own. In these interest rate environment, even the 20% IDP requirement are preventing projects from getting started. 50% would be a DOA.”
Not to mention the fact that market rate units help balance the costs of affordable units, so the grants are essentially forcing affordable buildings to be reliant on the unreliable govt for their long term viability. I thought the fact that were demolishing our public housing to build mixed income communities showed that we had learned from our past mistakes, but looks like not commpletely
This part is crazy:
“If you want to build a 50/50 project, you lose the ability to obtain these grants, forcing the project to balance its out on its own. In these interest rate environment, even the 20% IDP requirement are preventing projects from getting started. 50% would be a DOA.”
Not to mention the fact that market rate units help balance the costs of affordable units, so the grants are essentially forcing affordable buildings to be reliant on the unreliable govt for their long term viability. I thought the fact that were demolishing our public housing to build mixed income communities showed that we had learned from our past mistakes, but looks like not commpletely