The Neighborhood Developers has opened 170 Cottage Street, a new building with 66 affordable apartments next to the Chelsea Greenway. The Chelsea nonprofit celebrated the opening with residents and partners this week. “Seeing the smiles of the children and families who now call 170 Cottage home” was the best part, the group wrote on Facebook.
What is in the building
The building has 66 rental apartments: 12 one-bedroom, 43 two-bedroom and 11 three-bedroom units. It also has a community room, 72 parking spaces below ground, bicycle storage and more than 15,000 square feet of open space, according to MassDevelopment, the state agency that helped finance it. The site is one block from the Eastern Avenue stop on the Silver Line. TND says the building has an energy-efficient design.
Who can live there
The apartments are for households earning up to 60 percent of the area median income. When the financing closed in April 2024, MassDevelopment put that limit at $89,050 for a four-person household. Ten apartments are set aside for households at or below 50 percent of median income ($74,200 for a family of four at the time), and 18 for households at or below 30 percent ($44,520). Those figures change each year.
How it was paid for
MassDevelopment issued a $24.5 million tax-exempt bond for the project, bought by Eastern Bank through a subsidiary. Federal low-income housing tax credits were expected to bring in about $19.7 million more. At the time, MassDevelopment said TND owned 649 affordable units in Chelsea, Everett and Revere.
Because the building uses tax credits, its tenant selection follows state and federal rules, not the city’s. On Monday, the City Council asked for a 70 percent local preference for apartments built under Chelsea’s inclusionary zoning. City Manager Fidel Maltez told the council that tax credit projects “have their own restrictions.”
The photo above is from TND’s post on the celebration.