Section 3. Three or more persons may associate themselves by written agreement of association in a form furnished or approved by the commissioner of corporations and taxation with intent to form a corporation for the purpose of undertaking and carrying out in the city of Boston a project authorized and approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority or for the purpose of undertaking and carrying out in any other city or town a project authorized and approved, or to be authorized and approved, by the housing board. No such corporation shall undertake more than one project or engage in any other type of activity.

A charitable corporation organized under chapter one hundred and eighty, the property of which cannot on dissolution or otherwise inure to the benefit of any private person or entity, and which is approved by the local renewal agency, is hereby empowered to act as an Urban Redevelopment Corporation pursuant to all other provisions of this chapter, except as hereinafter provided, for the purpose of rehabilitating and improving residential housing. Such a corporation may sell any redevelopment project within fifteen years or such further time as may be provided under section ten, provided that any profits shall be employed in further redevelopment projects. Such a corporation shall be exempt from the provisions of section nine, provided that surplus earning profits from such projects, however, categorized, shall be employed in further urban redevelopment projects.

The laws relative to corporations organized under and subject to chapter one hundred and fifty-six, except section seven of said chapter, as far as consistent with the provisions of this chapter and rules and regulations made under authority thereof, shall apply to corporations so formed and such corporations are hereby declared to be instrumentalities of the commonwealth.

Any corporation organized under this chapter may, if the written agreement of association shall so provide, operate as a co-operative corporation in a manner similar to that provided in chapter one hundred and fifty-seven; provided, however, that if there is any inconsistency between the provisions of such chapter one hundred and fifty-seven and the provisions of this chapter, the provisions of this chapter shall be controlling.