Needham Housing Committee Approves Nearly $42,000 in Affordable Housing Reimbursements

NEEDHAM — May 18, 2026 — Needham's Finance Community Housing Oversight Committee approved two affordable housing disbursement requests totaling approximately $41,946 at its May 18 meeting. The first, a $717.50 reimbursement drawn from a 2019 Town Meeting appropriation, covered Cambridge Housing Authority work on the Seabed's Way and Captain Robert Cook Drive modernization project; the second, $41,228.85 from a 2023 Town Meeting article reimbursed at 21.2 percent, covered BH+A architectural fees that brought the Stevens Edge project through 100 percent construction documents and exhausted the remaining appropriation balance. Needham Housing Authority Board Chair Rich Foster told the committee that the Stevens Edge closing had slipped from late June to approximately July 2026 — pending Massachusetts Housing Partnership board approval in June — pushing the construction completion target from June 2027 to roughly March 2028, "a one to two month slip." Foster also disclosed that a $1.386 million London Street pre-development grant expires in June 2026 with roughly $185,000 unspent, and said the authority would seek a second two-year extension before the committee's next meeting on June 8.