Kane's Donuts in Saugus. Public housing officials in Saugus and five other communities are dealing with a 10.6 percent budget cut because local leaders failed to take the first step in complying with the state’s new zoning reforms.

For months now, a vocal segment of suburban officialdom has been quite publicly thumbing their noses at the biggest push to build multifamily housing outside of Boston in a generation. 

Local officials in Newton, Belmont, Concord and a number of other suburbs have been caught out on the record dissing the Baker administration’s drive to build more than 200,000 new apartments, condos and townhomes across the state. 

In particular, members of various select boards and the like have questioned whether their communities can simply ignore the new MBTA Communities law, which requires local governments to open their doors to new multifamily housing development near T stations. 

Offering up the usual litany of complaints about traffic and supposedly overloaded schools, some suburban pols have cited what they see as the relatively weak penalties for not complying, which include losing access to some small but particular popular state infrastructure grants. 

Other local officials have gotten more creative, with Kingston’s town administrator in Kingston suggested his community consider trying to shut down its commuter rail station as a way to circumvent the need to comply with the new law. 

Baker administration officials have been fairly muted in their response to this flareup of blatant NIMBYism so far, but that appears poised to change. Their feet are finally starting to be put down. 

Right Idea, Wrong Target 

Bottom of Form 

However, whether those feet are coming down on the right targets is another question. 

The Baker administration has yanked money from a group of local housing authorities, all of which are in suburbs that have balked at complying with the new law and its requirement that land near T stations be rezoned for apartment and condominium development. 

The result? Six local housing authorities across Greater Boston, which provide well more than a thousand affordable apartments for elderly, low-income and disabled residents, are scrambling after a 10.6 percent cut to their annual budgets, according to David Hedison, head of the Chelmsford Housing Authority. 

State officials are making the cuts because local officials in the cities and towns in question – Waltham, Woburn, Saugus, Hamilton, Halifax and Whitman – have failed to comply with the new MBTA Communities law, according to a copy of the letters sent out to local officials. 

The communities in question failed to take the initial steps required under the 2021 law, such as filing a “community information form” and holding a public hearing. 

The only way for the local housing authorities to get the money back is for the elected leaders of the communities in question to come into compliance with the law, with an end-of-January deadline. 

That’s not something local housing authority directors have control over, with the loss of the funding is a big deal for organizations that typically operate on fairly tight budgets. 

Will the Message Come Through? 

Punishing local housing authorities for the actions of local select board members, city councilors and mayors is not only unfair, but it also risks alienating natural allies in the battle to build more housing, Hedison said. 

The state chapter of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, which includes local housing authority leaders, plans to meet with Jennifer Maddox, a top state housing official, to discuss its concerns, said Hedison, who is the immediate past president of the organization. 

Scott Van Voorhis

“A law that is supposed to help create new affordable units is now negatively impacting the most vulnerable, extremely-low-income residents,” Hedison said. 

After months of listening to local officials talk about defying the law and effectively deriding its penalties as small potatoes, the Baker administration apparently has had enough. 

Slashing the budgets of local housing authorities, in theory at least, is harder to ignore than a modest grant for road repairs. 

So, it seems pretty clear that state officials are trying to send a message here. 

Here’s hoping, though, that the right people actually get it. 

Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.