Unusual Land Swap Deal Creates Affordable Senior Housing and Luxury Apartments

BURLINGTON, MA-A three-way land swap here has the potential to create 72 to 84 affordable housing units for seniors, 144 luxury apartment units and an industrial complex for this town. The complicated deal also has the potential to serve as a model for the development of affordable housing, in its creation of a partnership between public and private concerns.

“This is very unusual,” Tony Fields, planning director for the town of Burlington, tells GlobeSt.com. “Given the complexity of this and its four-party involvement, I’m not aware of this ever being done anywhere.”

The town here owns 14 acres of industrial property that was acquired when an extension to Route 3 was abandoned. The Gutierrez Company responded to an RFP to develop that land by offering the town its 19-acre residential parcel near Wall St. here in exchange for the industrial site. Gutierrez will also give the town two single-family properties and a reported $75,000.00 a year for 20 years for historic preservation, land acquisition or affordable housing.