Market Not Cooperating With Boston's Housing Goals

Michael Bodley examines the development market in Ashmont, where developers are struggling to make workforce housing projects pencil out.

The Ashmont section of Dorchester is newly popular, given its proximity to the Red Line. The neighborhood would also seem to be a perfect fit for helping Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh achieve his target of building 53,000 new units by 2030. Yet developers like Peregrine Urban Initiative, which has approval "to build a $14 million, 64-unit apartment complex" in Ashmont but is finding it hard to justify offering new units below the market rate.

There is public funding available. The state's MassHousing recently rolled out a "new $100 million fund to support the construction of workforce housing," according to Bodley, which "provides a subsidy of up to $100,000 a unit, but comes with strings attached: One-fifth of the units must be affordable to tenants who make less than 80 percent of the area’s median income." But Peregrine says it would prefer to keep the project privately financed.

The article includes more details on the ongoing push and pull between the private and public sectors as they negotiate a middle ground of priorities.