How do developers get neighborhood buy-in during pandemic? CoUrbanize has new tools
Construction is largely at a standstill due to the coronavirus outbreak. But the online developer platform coUrbanize says it is rolling out tools today for the next phase – when work restarts but social distancing makes communication with affected neighborhoods more complicated.
Delinquencies in rent payments during Covid-19 don’t stop costs at apartments rising, survey says
Around one in four renters didn’t pay their full April rent during a coronavirus crisis, and around the same amount of homeowners failed to make their full April mortgage payment, according to a nationwide survey. Those figures are believed to be worse for Cambridge and Somerville.
Shaking up the narrative of evil new owners where rents recently went to as low as $800
The family that owned an 80-unit housing complex near the Belmont city line kept tenants’ rents low, while doing little to modernize apartments; the development sold in December for $37.5 million. But new owners want to cooperate with efforts to keep at least the neediest tenants in their homes.
Zoning handling Grand Junction, substation ‘just beginning’ after years of piecing together (corrected)
The council brought a Grand Junction path closer to reality and sent a power station farther from a school with zoning that rewards two developers at once. But the city manager and executive director of the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority both warned that approval was really just the start.
Gas transfer station is removed in proposal for 250-foot lab tower with public arts space
While Cambridge will never get its long-promised Constellation Center, what could go in its place – a 250-foot, three-tiered lab tower with 40,000 square feet of public arts and culture space at its base – offers something new: removal of a gas transfer station from the showpiece Third Street.