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Affordable housing in Bedford gets a facelift

July 22, 2018

By John Laidler, The Boston Globe

Bedford rental housing communities will undergo major renovations and their affordable units will remain low cost for another 30 years as a result of state and local funding support.

The nonprofit Preservation of Affordable Housing has acquired and recently begun rehabilitating the 96-unit Bedford Village and the 14-unit building at 447 Concord St. through the financing, part of which will also help the organization meet a pledge to maintain all but two of the units as affordable to a range of low to medium incomes for at least 30 more years.

Bedford Village, off Dunster Street, is all affordable while the Concord Street building is a mix of affordable and market rate.

The affordable units to be preserved include 43 at Bedford Village, whose state subsidy has expired with the maturation of the original mortgage provided when the complex was built in the 1970s. The complex’s other units have remained affordable under other subsidy programs now being replaced by the new financing package.

MassHousing is providing Preservation an $8.2 million construction and permanent loan, a $9.2 million tax credit equity bridge loan, and a $5 million loan to help keep the 43 units affordable.

Under the agreement, the project also received $7.5 million in state-allocated federal low income housing tax credit equity; $5.7 million in direct support from the state Department of Housing and Community Development, $3.8 million in Bedford Community Preservation Act funds, and a $1.05 million loan from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership.

The project broke ground last month and is set for completion in June 2019.

Read the story on bostonglobe.com