An Acton-based group, the Massachusetts Slow Growth Initiative, is one of several groups in Massachusetts that is marshaling a campaign to repeal Chapter 40B, the state law that offers developers a streamlined permitting process—and significant density bonuses—in exchange for devoting at least 25 percent of a housing project to affordable homes.
To get the repeal question on the 2010 ballot, 40B opponents must collect the signatures of 67,000 registered voters.
“Our group is focused on sustainable growth, and that is difficult to achieve when 40B can come in and override town planning,” said Slow Growth Initiative’s director, Craig Chemaly, explaining his organization’s interest in the campaign.
State Senator Jamie Eldridge agreed that towns should be able to “build affordable housing on their own terms,” but opposes repeal, he told the Press this week. Eldridge has instead filed legislation to amend the law to require 50 percent affordability (instead of 25) for a 40B project and to change the formula used to calculate yearly progress on each town’s 10-year affordability plan. The change would mean that Harvard would need to build 10 new affordable units yearly in order to turn away new 40B projects. Currently, the town has to build 16 such units each year, a target that has never been hit. Also proposed is a requirement to keep affordable homes as such for longer than the current requirement of 15 to 25 years; Eldridge says the ideal time would be 99 years.
Chemaly praised Eldridge’s amendments, but said that even if they were passed as written—which he considers unlikely—they would “make things better than they are, but wouldn’t make things right.” Chemaly blasts the law as “developer welfare,” forcing unplanned growth that strains town services, especially schools, and allows building on environmentally sensitive areas that are normally rendered off-limits by local zoning. What’s more, he says, the law’s 3:1 ratio of market-rate to affordable units makes 10 percent affordability a moving target that is “nearly impossible” to reach.
Arlington resident John Belskis, founder of the Coalition to Repeal 40B and the originator of the petition, told the Press on Tuesday that the 1969 law is a 40-year-old failure. Over the years, substantive amendments “never made it out of committee” in the legislature, effectively killing any real reform, he said. Belskis notes that about half the state’s affordable housing stocks will soon revert to market rates. A 2008 report by the Slow Growth Initiative, “Failed Strategies and New Directions,” says 53 percent of affordable units will revert to market rates starting in 2010.
Eldridge opposes the repeal but said he is prepared to fill the void if the law is turned back. A more flexible law might replace 40B, he speculated, where “every community gets a fixed amount of money to pursue affordable housing on their own terms,” adding that a greater measure of responsibility by the towns and cooperation by the state would be necessary. “The community would really need to step up [if it wants] to pursue its own, creative solutions.”
In Harvard and in more than 200 other towns statewide, the petition drive will continue through mid-November, said Anthony Marolda of Jacob Gates Road, who is coordinating the drive here. Marolda said that volunteers will station themselves at “high traffic points,” such as the transfer station and the Saturday Farmers’ Market near the elementary school. Last Saturday yielded 50 signatures, he said. A 2007 petition drive, also sponsored by Coalition to Repeal 40B, failed to move the question to the ballot after signatures were disqualified. Stray marks on the petitions accounted for the discarded signatures, Belskis said.
