Mixed Housing

A housing model that can help middle class
By Paul McMorrow 

The Boston Globe published this editorial about housing today, 7.29.14.  It seems, to me, to make good sense.  Find an old warehouse, factory, school or business located near public transportation and transform it into housing for middle income individuals and families.  And/or maybe a development for truly mixed income families meaning 33% low, 33% medium and 33% high income folks mixed together, as opposed to all high end housing with let's say 10% affordable thrown into the mix.  Could work in Waltham? 

"Trinity wants to raze Ashmont Tire, an automotive shop sitting across the street from the Ashmont Red Line station, and replace it with 81 housing units. This type of development — on the T, in a neighborhood outside of downtown, replacing a storefront that could go anywhere in Massachusetts with a building that works only when it’s near a rail line — doesn’t happen as often as it should. Still, the project isn’t unique. It follows the lead of the Carruth, a six-story housing project that Trinity built across Dorchester Avenue, also next to Ashmont Station.

The Carruth and the Ashmont Tire proposal are scaled similarly — five stories of housing over a ground floor of retail storefronts. They both mix subsidized affordable housing units with market-rate homes. They’re both selling the prospect of a quick commute downtown to new residents, and using those new residents to attract retailers who deepen the vitality of the surrounding neighborhood. They’re the types of buildings that should be surrounding T stations across Boston."
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“There’s a dearth of housing that’s not at either end of the income spectrum, and it’s a real problem,” Trinity’s Kenan Bigby says. “We hope this type of model can go a long way to filling the gap.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2014/07/29/housing-model-that-can-help-middle-class/70OUPx6P9eBVAW1tGKwRJI/story.html?p1=ArticleTab_Article_