Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, along with Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus, announced a substantial $15 million boost through the Housing Development Incentive Program (HDIP) aiming to create 829 new homes across six Gateway Cities. According to an official statement, the inaugural funding round of the year marked a robust start, with projects spanning from market-rate residences to loft renovations peppering the Massachusetts landscape.
The cities toasting to the receipt of this housing gesture included Revere, teasingly eyeing two projects on the former Suffolk Downs site, the Bedford Street Lofts in Fall River stretching its industrial bones into living spaces, and the District Square in Haverhill bustling to adhere the fabric of community and commerce; alongside the incremental, yet vital, developments in Fitchburg, Lowell, and Worcester, confirming the administration’s commitment to the broad spectrum of housing needs. “These HDIP awards are a powerful tool in helping our Gateway Cities create housing and revitalize our downtowns, neighborhoods and underutilized properties,” Governor Healey noted, highlighting the pivot of such initiatives in nurturing communities and easing the affordability yoke each resident faces in the riddle for a home.
The Lieutenant Governor, Kim Driscoll, drew attention to the bright prospects these projects engender for the Massachusetts populace, edifying the local economies and infusing a surplus of affordable housing options. Moreover, Secretary Augustus applauded the state’s commitment to the expansion of market-rate housing, which elevates neighborhoods beyond mere real estate transactions to become spaces where aspiration and pride cohabitate. The substantial increase in the HDIP program’s annual cap to $30 million, with an additional singular infusion of $57 million as conferred in 2023, has born fruit, with 1,544 new housing units created in the prior year in these key cities…