Exciting progress at Asbury Commons in Hamilton - we’ve officially broken ground! Dirt has been excavated and stockpiled, and crews are continuing snow removal to keep site work moving. Work on the building and septic system will continue through February, followed by the foundation pour in March, with framing is expected to begin in April.

by Meghan Smith, GBH News

If Massachusetts wants to make housing more affordable, it needs to help keep rents low in the private market as well as build new units, according to a new report from the Boston Foundation and the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations.



It says preserving “naturally occurring affordable housing” — properties that are not subsidized by state or federal programs and are simply cheaper than other units in the private rental market — is vital. With most low-income residents renting in the unregulated private market, rising rents are making many of those who can least afford it rent burdened. It’s a problem that is exacerbated when buildings are sold to new landlords and rents are jacked up. Click here to read.

By Luc Schuster, executive director of Boston Indicators, a research center at the Boston Foundation, The Commonwealth Beacon

The MBTA Communities Act has unlocked thousands of new homes, but not where many hoped they’d be. Five years in, most early development is neither close to transit nor happening at the scale needed to meet Massachusetts’ housing goals, revealing a gap between the law’s promise and its real-world impact.

This analysis digs into why that happened, what the law has actually accomplished, and what a truly transit-oriented housing strategy would require next. Click here to read.