Affordable Housing and Community Development

The Affordable Housing and Community Development Practice Group at Rackemann, Sawyer & Brewster P.C. counsels and provides strategic planning to organizations seeking to identify, develop and finance affordable housing and community development projects.  In the course of our practice, we have developed extensive experience in structuring and negotiating complex transactions funded by a variety of sources, including federal, state and local government agencies, traditional lenders and investment syndications. We represent permitting authorities, developers of affordable housing, mixed use projects and educational facilities; lenders originating loans and purchasing tax exempt bonds to finance affordable housing and other community based facilities; and investors purchasing tax credits and lenders providing leveraged taxable and tax exempt financing for tax credit transactions.  Our clients include towns, for profit and non-profit developers, private and charter schools, universities, government lenders and housing finance agencies, national, regional, state and local commercial banks and insurance companies.

In light of the interdisciplinary nature of our clients' needs, our Practice Group includes attorneys who handle a broad array of matters with extensive experience in real estate, housing, environmental and land use, finance, municipal, tax, and corporate law and litigation.  Attorneys in our Practice Group are also members of various town boards and committees including planning boards, boards of appeals, conservation commissions, affordable housing committees and smart growth committees, and serve on boards of numerous non-profit organizations.  Our Practice Group also can bring to bear the skills of our subsidiary, Rackemann Strategic Consulting, Inc., for those projects with a complex interplay between permitting, design, and engineering.   

Representative Transactions

Representative affordable housing, multifamily and community development transactions include:

Representation of developer, including obtaining all local, state and federal permits and approvals for the first two phases (totaling 1,400 units of housing) of a multi-use project that will contain over 2,400 housing units, a hotel and retail shops in Malden and Revere.

Representation of developer, including obtaining $47MM in tax exempt affordable housing bonds, to develop a 139 unit mixed income multi-family housing project in Boston.

Representation of developer in acquisition and financing of 100 unit multifamily Section 8 project, including wrap around refinancing of existing 221(d)(3) loan, in Rhode Island.

Representation of numerous developers in the acquisition, financing and development of large-scale Chapter 40B projects including obtaining all permits and approvals for a 276 unit project in Randolph and a 200+ unit project in Canton. 

Special Town Counsel in connection with development of 4,513,000 square feet of retail, office, mixed income residential and hotel uses on over 130 acres in Westwood.

Representation of private university, including securing all local, state and federal permits, for  $230MM campus expansion in Cambridge.

Representation of institutional lender purchasing private placement 501(c)(3)bonds and providing New Markets Tax Credit leveraged financing of new headquarters facility for non-profit organization in Boston.

Representation of community development finance institution in creating $20MM public-private partnership to refinance subprime loans in Boston neighborhoods.

Representation of consortium of lenders closing $20MM acquisition and construction financing for 70 unit mixed income cohousing complex.

Represented developers in various Supreme Judicial Court c. 40B appeals including Boothroyd v. Zoning Board of Appeals of Amherst, 449 Mass. 333 (2007) and Canton Zoning Board of Appeals v. Housing Appeals Committee, 451 Mass. 158 (2008).

For more information on Affordable Housing and Community Development, contact Kurt James via email at kjames@rackemann.com or via telephone at 617.951.1154.