The Housing Choice Initiative provides incentives, rewards, technical assistance and targeted legislative reform to encourage and empower municipalities to plan and build the diverse housing stock that the Commonwealth needs to continue to thrive.
Donor Name: Commonwealth of Massachusetts
State: Massachusetts
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/02/2023
Size of the Grant: $50,000-$300,000
Details:
The Housing Choice Grant Program rewards municipalities that have produced a significant number of housing units in the last five years and that have adopted or established Best Practices that encourage housing production. Housing Choice grants may be used for a variety of activities related to community planning, zoning revisions, feasibility, engineering, designs and construction of physical infrastructure and of existing and new buildings, rehabilitation, due diligence, plan designs, market studies, pre-permitting/permitting, engineering, acquisition, demolition, and site related upgrades of future development sites.
Examples of these projects include, but are not limited to:
- Planning and Zoning
- Create a housing production plan to better understand housing needs of the community and identify strategies to reduce gaps in existing housing relative to identified needs.
- Create a multi-family zoning district near a transit station
- Create a corridor study of a commercial area that seeks land use alternatives to promote multi-modal access, introduce mixed-use, and achieve more compact commercial development.
- Review current zoning to identify and remove language that excludes certain housing types.
- Develop 40R/40Y Smart Growth or Starter Home districts.
- Review zoning ordinances and create a plan to update zoning rules to unlock potential housing production and economic development growth.
- Site Preparation
- Conduct permitting and prepare engineering plans to address changes to existing water, sewer and stormwater in a development site.
- Conduct pre-development site master plan on an underutilized commercial property with the intent to create mixed use that includes affordable housing.
- Demolish a blighted building that cannot be recovered to prepare a portion of a parcel or an entire parcel for mixed-use redevelopment that includes affordable housing.
- Buildings
- Address town infrastructure through public building improvements that addresses a local need.
- Provide further subsidies to an affordable housing project to directly create affordable housing units or increase the number of affordable units in a new housing project.
- Rehabilitation of housing to bring an underutilized property back onto the market.
- Infrastructure
- Conduct permitting, and construction to existing water, sewer and stormwater.
- Build pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure near public transit stations that connect residential and commercial areas to each other through alternative transportation modes.
- Create engineering designs to replace an existing sewer pump station that will increase capacity to build additional housing.
- Design or construction of a new water line connection to an adjacent town or making plans to consolidate water districts for an area served only by wells.
- Improve an intersection near newly built or permitted mixed-use project that will yield new affordable housing.
- Physical infrastructure improvements to increase safety and mobility between residential and commercial areas that increases and promotes alternative modes of transportation
Funding Information
- For 2024, approximately $4 Million is available in grants for qualifying municipalities
- Grants in this category will likely be $50,000-$300,000
- 2024 grants are expected to be awarded in the fall of 2023 and funded projects must be completed by June 30, 2025.
Uses of funds
Funding is available through the “Planning and Zoning,” “Site Preparation,” “Buildings,” and “Infrastructure” categories of the Community One Stop for Growth development continuum. Grants will fund a variety of activities related to community planning, zoning revisions feasibility, engineering, designs and construction of physical infrastructure and of existing and new buildings, rehabilitation, due diligence, plan designs, market studies, pretermitting/permitting, engineering, acquisition, demolition, and site-related upgrades of future development sites. Construction projects should consider whether their budget should contain a contingency line item.
Eligibility Criteria
Currently designated Housing Choice Communities, Regional Planning Agencies, and related municipal entities (Public Housing Authority, Redevelopment Authority, Water/Sewer or Service District, Economic Development Industrial Corporation, body created by legislative act to serve a municipality) serving a currently designated Housing Choice Community, are eligible for consideration of an Housing Choice grant. Applications may be submitted by a single applicant, two or more eligible applicants in a joint application with one lead entity, and applications from a regional entity for projects in Housing Choice Communities only. Further eligibility criteria for the Housing Choice Grant Program are as follows:
- Municipal eligibility:
- Municipality must be a currently designated Housing Choice Community.
- Municipality must have conducted an ADA Self Evaluation or Transition Plan or is willing to commit to conduct such planning by signing a Memorandum of Understanding with DHCD and Mass Office of Disability.
- Municipality certifies that no housing moratoria are in effect. Housing moratoria will make a community ineligible for this grant. If a community has housing restriction bylaws (such as “growth limitations”) these must allow for at least a 5% increase in housing units over a single year and are reviewed on a case by case basis.
- Regional Planning Agencies and Related Municipal Entities:
- Related Municipal Entitles must be within, serve, plan to serve, and/or continue to serve a currently Designated Housing Choice Community.
- Applications submitted directly by a Regional Planning Agency or Related Municipal entity must provide clear and evident support for their project by the Housing Choice Community.
For more information, visit Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
