By Mark Pickering
Watertown is again taking the lead in addressing the Massachusetts housing crisis. The city’s goal this time is to rebuild Willow Park’s public housing and add affordable units to the project.
Since Watertown OK’d the development, our neighbor to the south has taken steps to add more all-affordable housing as well. The Boston Planning and Development Agency has OK’d a 63-unit all-affordable project and a 52-unit one, both in Roxbury.
Longtime Watertown City Councilor Tony Palomba said the Willow Park project will be the first all-affordable housing development approved in Watertown in many years. “The $107.5 million project marks a major milestone for the city,” he said. Palomba is chair of the Council’s Human Services Committee.
Getting state funding is the big obstacle for Watertown’s latest effort. The state is the sponsor of the Willow Park Public Housing Development, which was built in the 1950s. Willow Park is run by the Watertown Housing Authority, which backs the redevelopment plan.
“We’re really happy with where the final plan has landed,” said Josh Rosmarin, a spokesman for Housing For All Watertown. His community group urges the city to address Watertown’s housing crisis.
“The opportunity to both redevelop all 60 existing (public housing) units and add 78 new deed-restricted affordable units doesn’t come around every day,” he added. “We’re eager to see the process move as quickly as possible … We want to see shovels in the ground!”
The housing advocacy group is set to host a meeting on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2 to 3:30 p.m. at the Watertown Public Library. Experts in the field were scheduled to talk on what’s needed to build affordable housing.
Many city residents agree that everyone needs to pitch in to solve the housing crisis.
Housing for All Watertown was honored with the Unity Award given out by the local group that runs a longtime Martin Luther King Jr. breakfast. The online Watertown News reported that nearly 500 people attended this year’s event.
The Willow Park plan has already jumped through a number of hoops. Its biggest success was reeling in $4 million from Watertown’s Community Preservation Act money. A surcharge on the City’s property tax bills pulls in the money; a board governs the use of it.
The $4 million award is “by far the largest commitment of Watertown’s CPA funds to any single project,” said Mark Kraczkiewicz, chair of the governing board. The award shows “the importance the Watertown community attaches to meeting the needs for affordable housing,” he said in a press release.
The Housing Authority’s then-chief, Michael Lara, said, in a press release that he was “grateful to City administrators, elected officials, Willow Park residents and the surrounding community for the continued support.”
The redevelopment effort has already jumped through a number of hoops:
* To kick things off, the Housing Authority hosted community meetings.
* The Authority then teamed up with a nonprofit developer, Preservation of Affordable Housing.
* And a City board approved a $400,000 grant for expenses incurred before redevelopment begins.
Palomba notes that state funds and access to tax credits “are limited and in high demand.”
In the U.S. as a whole, the number of public housing units has been decreasing for some time.
In Boston, the Columbia Point project was built to house 1,500 families. It was demolished entirely in the mid-1980s and all its public housing units disappeared from the rolls. It was replaced by the 1,200-unit Harbor Point, a mixed-income community with only 400 subsidized units.
Watertown’s plan to preserve its public housing offers a stark contrast.
Beyond that, the City has already showed a strong commitment to fixing the state’s housing crisis. One example: Under the rules of the MBTA Communities Act, Watertown needed to rezone to allow for 1,700 new multifamily units. Instead, the city is allowing for 4,000 units.
Mark Pickering is a veteran of the local news business, having worked on the business desk and the opinion pages of the Boston Herald.