REGIONAL – Senate Minority Leader Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, successfully pushed through six amendments aimed at boosting local projects in the Affordable Homes Act, recently signed into law by Gov. Maura Healey.
This new law and its associated programs are designed to help create, maintain and restore more than 65,000 homes across the state in the next five years.
To lock in these funds, Healey needs to authorize the expenditure of funds approved in the bond bill.
“The ongoing shortage of housing in Massachusetts is a serious problem, and one that communities and organizations in our region are working diligently to address,” Tarr said. “These earmarks create the potential for meaningful and increased partnership between state government and those working locally to create housing and the infrastructure to support it.”
The new law allows for $5.16 billion to be spent over the next five years to tackle increasing housing costs and the ongoing housing shortage in the state. Six of Tarr’s amendments made it through the Senate and were part of the final bill. They include:
Amendment #19: $1 million for Tarr’s home city of Gloucester for workforce development and affordable housing purposes
Amendment #22: $3 million for planning and design of water infrastructure interconnections between municipalities and other public water suppliers in the Ipswich River watershed to support current and future housing stocks.
Amendment #97: $2 million for infrastructure improvement to facilitate housing production along the Rte. 1 corridor between Topsfield and Salisbury.
Amendment #99: $500,000 for the city of Newburyport for the development of housing at the former Brown school located at 40 Milk Street.
Amendment #100: $500,000 for Housing Support Inc. in Newburyport for the creation of housing to support low-income individuals, homeless individuals, people with disabilities, veterans and individuals in recovery in the Merrimack Valley.
