Key is allowing existing stock to count
A home rule petition on this year’s warrant is poised to revolutionize affordable housing in Harvard. If accepted, the petition will take the town closer to its long-term goal of certifying existing accessory apartments as “affordable,” providing a low-impact, inexpensive way of meeting state mandates for lower-cost homes.
The main benefit of the petition is that it will, in combination with new regulations, let Harvard increase its affordable units without necessarily building new homes. “You need three things to achieve our goal,” Planning Board member Barbara Brady said. “The accessory apartment bylaw, a DHCD [Department of Housing and Community Development] stamp on our regulations, and the home rule petition.”
Based on its percentage of affordable housing, which is 2.8 percent compared to the state mandate of 10 percent, Harvard must build 16 units per year or be compelled to accommodate projects developed under the state’s affordable housing law, 40B. Local zoning laws are relaxed under the law to encourage developers to build more affordable homes.
If the town passes the petition and DHCD accepts the regulations, Harvard will likely be “the only town in Massachusetts that has gotten this far in terms of qualifying existing housing,” said Planning Board Chairwoman Mary Essary. Provincetown and Barnstable have gotten only as far as the home rule petition. “They were the pioneers, and their petitions were useful as templates,” Essary said. A home rule petition is legislation filed by a town to address its own, very specific need. The legislation does not affect state laws.
The chief architect of the petition and the regulations is Brady, a member of the Harvard Housing Partnership as well as the Planning Board. She said that the main purpose of the petition is to “allow the town to offer tax incentives for units that qualify and are registered as affordable accessory apartments.” Landlords who rent affordable apartments would receive a local tax exemption for the square footage of the unit, with exemptions renewable yearly. The petition also fine- tunes the existing accessory apartment bylaw (§125-18). It restricts the size and proportion of an apartment in relation to the primary home, and provides for the possibility of an apartment in a barn or detached garage.
Diverse housing is another benefit to be derived from the petition, according to Brady. “People who want to downsize would have more options. They could move to an apartment but maintain the fabric of their lives in Harvard.”
Regulations consume a year’s time
Federal and state regulations have been an obstacle because they apply to apartment buildings, not to small-town accessory apartments. The challenge, Brady said, was to scale down the regulations to suit Harvard’s needs and preserve the spirit of the rules so the state would approve them. Deed restrictions for retaining a unit’s affordability and HUD [Housing and Urban Development]-mandated fair rental practices needed the most tweaking, Brady said. “We needed to build flexibility into some fairly rigid practices,” she said.
For example, federal equal-opportunity rules would give little choice to Harvard landlords, even though they would be living in the same building or nearby a tenant. Those rules require that space must be rented to the first qualified person who applies. With the home rule petition, according to Brady, a modified lottery process will prohibit discrimination, but allow a landlord to select a tenant from three equally eligible candidates.
Also, standard deed restrictions are cumbersome to a landlord of one apartment, but the petition, Brady said, will allow a 15-year deed restriction that rides with the owner, not the property, and will safeguard an apartment’s affordability without encumbering a property.
The DHCD has worked with Brady on the rules. It will also screen the regulations for compliance to HUD rules. Harvard’s regulations are based on the DHCD’s rules for non-40B, local initiative project units.
Generally speaking, homeowners whose accessory apartments meet requirements of the accessory apartment bylaw and home rule petition can participate. However, those with accessory apartments occupied by family members are not allowed to register the apartment in the affordable program. “We had hoped first preference [for affordable units] was family, but HUD won’t allow it.” Nothing else, of course, prevents family members from living in accessory apartments.
Landlords would agree to equal opportunity rental practices and to the 15-year deed restriction that runs with them, not the property. Prospective tenants must earn less than 80 percent of the area’s median income. For example, rent would be $1,654 for a family of four on an income of $66,150 per year. One person would pay $1,058 on an income of $46,300. Utilities would be included, or the rent adjusted. Tenants would be qualified through the town by an outside firm specializing in that work and would enter a lottery for an apartment. The Harvard Housing Partnership would manage the lottery and maintain two waiting lists: one for local people, the other for nonlocals. Harvard residents would have preference in a 2 to 1 ratio, and could also put their names on both lists. As a result, apartments would not necessarily be held vacant for want of a nonresident on the waiting list. A local person would get the unit as long as no more than 11 apartments of the 16-unit goal had been rented to local people that year.
Not every accessory apartment will be affordable, either. The program is strictly voluntary: the home rule petition simply provides the tax incentive. Still, the Planning Board, selectmen, and housing partnership hope that homeowners will step forward. In theory, Harvard’s yearly requirement for 16 affordable units could be filled by accessory apartments. It is unlikely, Brady said, but not prohibited by the state. At a recent hearing on the petition, a planner wanted to know what happened if a tenant’s income went up: would the tenant be kicked out? Brady’s answer was no. A tenant’s income can float to 140 percent of its original level, Brady said. DHCD might calculate a higher rent, with the difference going to the town.
Limits of the petition
When asked for the downside of the petition, planner Mary Essary pointed only to its scope, which is limited by the different rules DHCD has for each class of housing. “We may need to do something else to qualify nonaccessory rental units … or to qualify accessory units that are too large for the accessory apartment bylaw.”
Brady’s work praised
The Planning Board and selectmen have commended Brady’s effort. Essary said, “I am immensely proud of Barbara and of our board in refusing to be victims to 40B and instead making this proactive and constructive work on behalf of the town.” She acknowledged Brady’s work as a “gift to the town.” Brady is invested in the work, but modest about her achievement. Her main concern, she said, is a successful Town Meeting, and seeing that the regulations she’s wrestled with for most of a year are wholly accepted by the DHCD.
