October 1, 2003
ROMNEY ANNOUNCES $8.9 MILLION TO CREATE 825 MORE HOMES
NORTHAMPTON – Continuing his pledge to boost the supply of housing across the Commonwealth, Governor Mitt Romney today announced $8.9 million in grants from the state’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund (AHTF) to help build 825 new homes statewide, 717 of which will be affordable to low-and moderate-income families.
“Our housing supply shortage is often cited as the number one barrier to business growth and job creation in Massachusetts and we are working overtime to build more housing” said Romney. “That is why my recently announced ‘Jobs First’ program includes additional local aid incentives for increased housing production and also proposes rewards for communities with state-owned surplus property to take action to spur residential development.”
Romney made the announcement in Northampton, where he celebrated the awarding of $1 million of the AHFT funds to The Community Builders, the developer of Northampton’s Village at Hospital Hill. Along with the AHTF award, the project in Northampton will also receive federal low-income housing tax credits worth more than $2.7 million in private investment as well as $750,000 federal HOME funds and $860,114 in state Facilities Consolidation Funds. This investment will help fund phase one of the project, which will revitalize two existing buildings at the former Northampton State Hospital site to create 33 new apartments, 26 of which will be rented to low- and moderate-income households.
“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Northampton have worked together for many years on a redevelopment plan for this valuable real estate parcel,” said Housing and Community Development Director Jane Wallis Gumble. “It is fitting that Governor Romney would come to Northampton to announce these awards because so many state agencies were involved in making this redevelopment phase possible, including DHCD, MassHousing and MassDevelopment for its overall site control responsibilities.”
“The Village at Hospital Hill is a wonderful model of how state and local government can work together with the non-profit private sector to address a wide array of community needs in ways that are consistent with local interests,” said Patrick Clancy, President and CEO of The Community Builders.
Since the inception of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2001, nearly $52 million in private housing funding has been awarded to 93 projects to ultimately create a total 3,906 total homes, 3,146 of which are affordable to low- and moderate-income families. In that time, 799 have been completed, 930 are under construction and 910 are pending construction.
“The Affordable Housing Trust Fund is doing exactly what it was intended to do,” said MassHousing Executive Director Tom Gleason. “It is providing modest amounts of funding that are helping to get worthy development projects off the ground that might otherwise never be built.”
Romney said the rest of the $8.9 million in grants will be invested in 13 other projects across the state, including in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Provincetown, Quincy, Taunton, Worcester and Yarmouth. He said a second Northampton project being developed by TCB – Northampton Independent Living – will receive $105,000 in trust funds. The project will provide six independent living apartments for Department of Mental Health clients.
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