Sen. Birmingham Is Hearing Complaints About ‘Affordable Housing’

Does MassNews Deserve the Credit?

November 2001

Sen. Tom Birmingham says he is hearing many complaints about "affordable housing" and the "anti-snob law," known as "40-B," that is worsening urban sprawl across the state.

"I have heard more complaints about 40-B in the last year than in my last nine years in office, and from places like Woburn and Taunton, places I don't think of as snobbish," he said.

Although the EPA says that urban sprawl is the greatest environmental threat to Massachusetts, we reported in July that the article in our February issue about the woes faced Grafton, had not affected the law yet.

But it has now. After 250,000 copies of MassNews went out across the state, the Boston Globe took notice and immediately reported many stories about how wonderful the "affordable housing" law is. It didn't report that the law allows developers to increase sprawl all over Massachusetts.

The developer in Grafton wanted to put in 50 homes on a pristine parcel of land. When the town raised issues about the project, the developer threatened to build a mammoth 456-unit "affordable housing" condo development on the land. Then he twice reduced the size of his threatened development, first to 264 townhouses and then to 76 homes (19 affordable housing and 57 regular homes). But the town still has problems with the impact of the entire project on its environment.

The fight in Grafton continues to this day as a group of homeowners seek to limit the developer to only the twelve houses that he would be allowed under local zoning ordinances if it were not for the state's 40-B law.

Birmingham Sees Problems Now

In a typical scenario, Birmingham said, according to the Boston Globe, "a developer will come to a town with a proposal to do a strip mall, the town says no, and the developer comes back and says, 'OK, I'm going to do a 257-unit 40-B project.'"

The present law requires that every city and town have 10% of its housing stock be lower-priced, "affordable" homes. If it doesn't conform (and virtually every town around Boston does not) then a developer can come in and force the town to accept almost any proposal he desires, regardless of the zoning requirements.

There is a new proposal in the legislature that would change this so that a town would now be required to only increase its affordable housing by one percent a year.

Although this would make the burden on towns less than it is now, it would still put rules, regulations and untold expense on the towns, opponents say.

The Globe cited as an expert throughout its article, Robert Engler, a consultant to the developers who want to build these sprawl-increasing projects throughout the state. Engler told the Globe that many Massachusetts communities want to stop residential growth entirely, whether market-rate homes or affordable housing projects. He cited two communities, Bolton and Barnstable, that had implemented no-growth measures.

But other observers said that those two communities should stop further growth. They are an excellent example of the urban sprawl that the EPA has said is the state's greatest environmental threat.

Globe Chides Towns

The Boston Globe story was supposed to be a news story, but it was more of an editorial. Its lead paragraph was:

"Roundly criticized earlier this year after they sought ways to skirt state requirements to build lower-priced homes, most suburbs all but gave up on the quest for loopholes.

"Some suggestions - such as counting trailer homes as affordable housing - were derided as evidence that towns would go to great lengths to avoid doing anything about the state's chronic shortage of affordable homes."

The legislature is wrapping up plans to keep the law in place, albeit with a few changes, and anyone who wishes to be heard on the subject had better contact their legislators now.

What Hit Grafton?

Many observers point out that the liberals from places like Brookline and Newton (who pass these laws) have many acres of some of the most exclusive and expensive homes in the state, but because they also have some lower-priced homes on the other side of town, no one bothers them.

We reported in our February and July issues that the townspeople in Grafton were almost resigned to the fact the developer would get his way in their town and be able to build something on the land because the law allows developers to cut through local ordinances and get a special permit if they pledge to set aside at least 25% of their housing units as "affordable."

"They always get their way if they just mention '40B,'" is the way one person put it.

So Grafton was faced with developer Pribhu Hingorani's original 50-home subdivision which the town did not want because of infrastructure problems, or a 76-house development with 25% of them set aside for low income people - with the power of the state behind the proposal. The developer has a good chance to get his way.

Liberals passed the so-called "anti-snob law" in 1969 to increase the supply of low-to moderate-income housing. The state wants every city and town to have at least 10% of its housing "affordable," or else the town is vulnerable to the law. Developers who meet local resistance to their building plans have resorted to using the state law to sledgehammer towns into allowing them to build. A special state agency becomes a "referee" in such situations and in most cases, the developer gets to build.

Critics of the law point out that while the state government supposedly is concerned about preserving the environment and stopping sprawl, the 40B law allows developers a loophole to snatch up the remaining open spaces.