Boston nonprofit Preservation of Affordable Housing, Inc. (POAH), has purchased the Brandy Hill Apartments, a 132-unit affordable housing complex on State Street in East Wareham, to ensure the long-term affordability of the units.

"I take [the purchase] as good news," said Carl Nagy-Koechlin, executive director of South Shore Housing, a regional affordable housing group that serves Plymouth and Bristol Counties. "We own and operate 56 units in Wareham, and administer 137 rental subsidies to help people secure apartments," Nagy-Koechlin said.  "We have no trouble filling our units..."I'm always relieved that if a project changes hand, that it is to somebody who is committed to maintaining its affordability."

Although the deal does not involve the town (the deal is between a nonprofit and a private developer in partnership with MassHousing), the deal will help mitigate Wareham's need for affordable housing.

The state has set a goal that 10% of every community's housing stock be considered affordable.  If that goal is unmet, (as is currently the case in Wareham where, as of May, 538 of the town's 8650 total housing units, representing 6.2 percent of the total, were considered affordable) developers can be exempted from many local zoning restrictions under the state's 40B law, so long as a percentage of the new housing will be affordable.

However, these 40-B developments can cause tension. due to their size, scale , traffic needs and, often, their juxtaposition with the surrounding development.  The Union Pond project, now in construction, was granted a variance that allowed up to 144 units in place of of the 10-15 single-family lots for a conventional single-family development in the zoned area.

The Brandy Hill development was originally built in the early 1970s under the "Section 236 program," which provided interest-rate subsidies in exchange for maintaining the property's affordability.  However, the restriction that the property remains affordable, referred to as the current-use restriction or affordability covenant, is set lapse in 2016 once the mortgage is paid off.  Without this purchase, the apartments could be rented for the market-rate and open the door to more 40-B development at that time.

"Often the threat of losing affordability covenants arises after it's too late," said  Amy Anthony, Preservation of Affordable Housing president.  "By partnering with Prudential, we were able to act quickly and with flexibility so that when Brandy Hill's use restrictions approach maturity, we're in the right position to do something about it."

The acquisition was partially funded by a short-term, low-interest, $3 million loan from Prudential Financial's Social Investment Program.  This $10 million line of credit  provides funding for affordable-housing projects that have been determined to be "economically-strong," but which do not meet the standards for collateral demanded by typical lenders, according to Preston Pinkett III, vice president of Social Investments in Community Resources at Prudential. "Sound business opportunities do not always fit established molds," Pinkett noted in a press release.

The acquisition is also financed by the organization's assumption of the current MassHousing mortgage, and an acquisition mortgage from MassHousing.POAH anticipates refinancing the property using Low Income Housing Tax Credits and  using these funds to make improvements including updating the kitchens and bathrooms, replacing the roof, and re-siding the building, said  Project Manager Thacher Tiffany.

And although neither the town's Affordable Housing Trust nor the Wareham Housing Authority were involved in the project,  Housing Authority member Donald Hall was pleased to hear the news.

"I guess it's pretty good news because we need [affordable housing] so badly around here," he said.