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Massachusetts
New Development Secretary Gottlieb Outlines Financial Rewards for Commonwealth's High-Density Downtown Residential Districts
Smart growth helps communities build more housing and expand ''the housing choices beyond large-lot, single-family subdivisions,'' writes new state Office for Commonwealth Development Secretary Andrew Gottlieb in a Boston Herald guest opinion, pointing out that each of the five municipalities that have recently approved special high-density residential districts downtown, in town centers, on postindustrial sites or near transit, with 20 percent of units affordable to lower-income residents, will receive $3,000 per new housing unit and an up to $600,000 lump sum under Chapter 40R, plus funds covering school costs for children in these districts under Chapter 40S.
Plymouth will rehabilitate an old rope-making factory for more than 670 housing units; Dartmouth will transform an old amusement park into a 200-home complex; Norwood will redevelop a church property, North Reading will use the former J.T. Berry campus for mixed-use development, and Chelsea will build high-density housing steps from its commercial center and transit, he writes, stressing that Plymouth will get more than $2 million for its project.
''The increased production and the diversity of the housing stock,'' the secretary continues, ''opens up new possibilities for the young, the elderly, and the teachers and police officers who have been frustrated by the region's high home prices for so many years.''
Noting that alternatives to sprawl help the environment and ''increase energy efficiency in these times of high fuel prices,'' and that compact mixed-use construction adds value and ''provides a foundation for new jobs and economic development,'' he calls smart growth ''a handy term to refer to all these benefits.'' -- Boston Herald 7/5/2006
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