To keep housing affordable, Marlborough, Mass., offers a subsidy.

Byline: Peter Schworm

Jan. 2--Marlborough is launching a pioneering affordable housing program that will subsidize landlords who agree to cap rents and lease apartments exclusively to low-income tenants.

The incentive plan, which resembles the federal government's housing voucher program, marks the first time a Massachusetts community will pay landlords to ease the shortage of low-priced housing.

Housing advocates praised the fledgling program as an innovative and much-needed remedy to a tight housing market that has priced out many working- and lower-middle-class families. State housing officials approved the plan and will monitor its progress as a potential model for other communities.

The city's Office of Community Development recently mailed applications to 40 landlords who have expressed interest in the program. City officials are expected to vote later this month [January] on the program's budget, which will be financed by residential development fees. The city has about $300,000 from past housing projects.

Al Lima, the city's director of planning and community development, said landlords will receive about $8,000 a year for each housing unit they reserve at below market-rate rents.

Only tenants who make less than 80 percent of the region's median income, $66,000 for a family of four, would be eligible to rent the apartments. They would pay 30 percent of their total income in rent. Landlords would be eligible for low-interest loans to repair their properties.