Just a few months after releasing the results of a landmark study that quantified the housing shortage in the Greater Boston area and offered a detailed of action plan how to bring more residential units online, Cardinal Bernard Law and the Archdiocese of Boston have taken several steps toward chipping away at the problem.

That report, titled “A New Paradigm for Housing in Greater Boston” and prepared by Northeastern University’s Center for Urban and Regional Policy and a group of community leaders, came to the conclusion that an additional 36,000 housing units were needed in the area over the next five years. To meet that target, about $1.5 billion in assistance would be required.

While calling on all levels of government, as well as the private sector, to help meet the goal, the archdiocese also pledged its own continued support. To that end, the organization is involved in several projects which are at various stages of conception and construction that would add several hundred units of housing to the area’s existing inventory, according to David Armitage, director of design and construction at the archdiocese’s Development and Planning Office.

Recently, the archdiocese requested a hearing in front of Boston’s Board of Appeal to seek a variance associated with its latest housing proposal. According to the hearing notice, the organization is looking to erect a five-story addition to a vacant convent and convert it into 50 apartments.

The convent – located at 39 Maple St. in the city’s Hyde Park neighborhood – has stood empty for several years, and preliminary proposals call for the property to be used as housing for lower-income senior citizens.

Armitage, however, stressed that the Maple Street proposal in still in its early stages, and plans may change after the archdiocese meets with residents from the community surrounding the property. A meeting has been scheduled for Dec. 12.

Much further along in the planning stages is a proposal to bring some 300 units of housing to a currently underutilized parcel in the Brighton section of the city, at the site of the St. John of God Hospital.

The site is currently home to Good Samaritan Hospice Care and some other archdiocesan offices as well as Seton Manor, which is the oldest residence for HIV-infected persons in the city.

Plans for a revamped St. John of God campus calls for several units of market-rate coop housing for senior citizens, an assisted living facility, a skilled-care nursing home and an improved Seton Manor.

“Our teams got together to come up with a development proposal for the site and decided on a continuum of care campus that included the independent elderly as well as assisted living and a nursing home,” Armitage said. “It seemed like a natural fit, and the cardinal is firm about keeping a health care component on that campus.”

He added that the idea behind the re-use of the 5 1/2-acre plot of land between Allston Street and Corey Road would allow residents to maintain consistency in where they lived, despite changes in health.

“Someone could be in independent living, and if they get sick for a while, they can go across the site to recover at the nursing home, then go back. If a couple is involved, they still get to be near each other,” Armitage said. “As someone ages, they’re not moving from town to town as their needs change. There’s a degree of familiarity, safety and security.”

Ninety-nine units of cooperative housing would be constructed and sold at market rates. The assisted-living facility would have room for 100, with an additional 70 spaces in the skilled nursing care facility. Seton Manor would have 24 units, Armitage said. Plans call for space to be set aside for 30 units of housing for retired priests of the archdiocese.

Talks with community leaders have been productive and there is support for the project from the neighborhood, Armitage said, though some issues surrounding parking and traffic still need to be addressed.

“We’re trying to preserve as much green space as possible. It’s a nice green parcel in the middle of Brighton where people come to walk their dogs … It’s become an integral part of the neighborhood, and we want to maintain that aspect of the campus,” he said.

Officials hope to break ground on the project in the spring of 2001.

A Broader Approach
In the city’s South End, officials from the city and the archdiocese last month finally broke ground on Rollins Square, where the church is embarking on a $56 million project that will bring a mixed-income, cooperative and condominium residential development to the neighborhood that will include 120 affordable dwellings.

The project will be made up of 36 one-bedroom units, 94 two-bedroom units and 54 three-bedroom units. Affordable units will have rents that range from $329 to $982 per month, while the sale prices for the affordable condominium units range from about $90,000 to $172,000. That development is expected to be completed in 2002.

In Waltham, another project connected to the archdiocese is nearing completion. At the site of the former St. Mary’s High School on Lexington and Pond streets, crews from Peabody Construction are converting the building into 24 units of senior housing which will be connected to new construction that will house an additional 46 units. The project is about 80 percent complete, with the first tenants expected to move in sometime in March of 2001.

“While the housing crunch is generally centered in Boston – downtown is packed – places like Waltham and Somerville are becoming more expensive, too. And as housing becomes more and more expensive, the elderly can afford it less and less,” Armitage said. “We’re not just focused on Boston, we’re taking a broader Eastern Massachusetts approach to solving the problem.”

He added that while the Archdiocese of Boston is interested in developing housing, it also recognizes that selling a property to a private developer or using a parcel in another form may also be beneficial.

For example, in South Boston, the archdiocese recently sold St. Paul’s Church and the St. Vincent de Paul Rectory in South Boston to a developer who plans to turn the neighborhood’s oldest church into mixed-income condominiums.

“There are a number of [church-owned] properties coming on line in Eastern Mass., and we’re developing a book to guide a parish council on determining the best use of a property,” Armitage said. “If it’s a piece of land in an area where’s there already a lot of affordable housing, we might sell it to a market-rate developer and use the proceeds to help our social programs.”

Thomas Philbin, spokesman for the city’s Department of Neighborhood Development, said the archdiocesan plan for bringing more housing to the area is a significant one and complements plans envisioned by Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

“A few years ago the mayor proclaimed housing to be a top priority, and the cardinal followed that up with a housing summit, and he came up with a specific dollar amounts for addressing the problem,” Philbin said. “That’s something that hadn’t been done in the greater metropolitan area.

“And the mayor has gone to the state looking for more state funding for housing, as well as trying to spread the solution around to surrounding communities, which follows up on what the cardinal has done.”

“The Archdiocese of Boston has been an outstanding partner of the city when it comes to the creation of affordable housing,” Menino said. “The Cardinal’s housing report is an important step in the right direction, identifying creative ways to produce more affordable housing and echoing my call for other government leaders to help us create more housing that working people can afford.”