There’s nothing NIMBY blowhards hate more than our state’s affordable housing law. Our hometown housing bigots just love to fume and fulminate about the evils of 40B, which enables developers to circumvent obstructionist local zoning in order to build sorely needed affordable apartments and condominiums.
When they aren’t blasting all those “greedy developers” at the local planning board or selectmen’s meetings, opponents of 40B are warning that innocuous proposals for suburban-style apartment communities are really just a Trojan horse for urban invaders and ghetto-style public housing.
The only thing more amazing than the fact that anyone could actually believe this stuff is that no one running these meetings ever seems to challenge such racially-charged nonsense.
So nothing delights me more than to relate this little piece of news: California and other states are looking to our very own 40B as a model for getting more affordable housing built at a time when rents and prices are soaring again.
In fact, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation have written a whole paper on the virtues of the Bay State’s 1960s-era affordable housing, recommending that the Golden State create a California 40B!
Scott Van Voorhis
“Given the severity of the housing crisis in California, and the evidence of positive results in Massachusetts, serious consideration should be given to the benefits of adopting California 40B,” the Berkeley researchers write.
Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to truly appreciate what you have, and the Berkeley report does just that for our state’s oft-derided affordable housing law. Like Massachusetts, California is faced with its own affordable housing crunch, which, if anything, is even worse than what we are dealing with here.
Just take a look at the median home price in San Francisco, which hit an astounding $1.1 million, according to Zillow.
Rents aren’t any better, having jumped 24 percent statewide since 2000, even as incomes have fallen 7 percent, according to the Berkeley report.
All the while, the amount of new apartment, home and condo construction, especially of the more affordably priced category, has failed to keep up with demand. California Gov. Jerry Brown has already proposed speeding up the state environmental review process or having some projects skip it altogether.
However, another big culprit is local zoning rules, which also effectively box out proposals for new housing, the study notes. It’s a situation that should sound familiar to anyone who knows anything about the Massachusetts housing market. And after scouring the country for potential solutions, the Berkeley researchers argue that a California 40B, patterned in large part on the Massachusetts law, is the way to go.
In fact, Massachusetts and its Chapter 40B affordable housing law has been a model for other states since it was rolled out in 1969, including Connecticut, Rhode Island and Illinois, the report notes.
40B Not Without Flaws
It’s easy to get down about the dearth of reasonably priced housing in the Boston area, but without 40B, the situation would be even worse, the Berkeley researchers note.
Back in the early 1970s, just four Massachusetts cities and towns could say that 10 percent of all their homes and apartments were affordable. That number has jumped fourfold since then, the Berkeley report finds, to include such wealthy suburbs like Lexington, Lincoln and Concord.
Moreover, the report points to the more than 58,000 new apartments and condos built in Massachusetts through 2010 since 40B was enacted in the late 1960s, 31,000 of them affordable units reserved for low- and moderate-income families.
There is also no evidence that 40B places an undue burden on local communities, the Berkeley researchers note. Opponents of 40B routinely blast the law for a whole range of assorted ills, chief among them higher costs for schools and demand for municipal services, such as fire and police. Facts never seem to get in the way of these concerns, with studies by top local researchers showing no negative impact from new apartments and condos built under 40B often brushed aside or ignored.
But for the Berkeley researchers, studies by MIT that found no negative impact on home values from new apartment developments and the University of Massachusetts that debunked the increased school costs myth were conclusive enough.
“There is also very little evidence of negative impacts generated by Chapter 40B developments. A review of contested projects built as a result of Chapter 40B found that many concerns were resolved or did not materialize once the project had been built,” the report notes.
Even so, Berkeley researchers also highlight a couple areas where the Massachusetts version of 40B could use a tune up.
Our 10 percent affordable requirement is somewhat problematic, for one.
Under 40B, developers are able to cut through local zoning restrictions in communities where less than 10 percent apartments, homes and condos are meet the definition of affordable housing. The 10 percent rule is too much of a one-size-fits-all requirement that falls a bit short in taking into account individual circumstances and challenges faced by local communities, the Berkeley researchers argue.
Massachusetts could also have spelled out more clearly exactly what kind of affordable housing it is seeking. For example, towns can bulk up on senior housing as a way of meeting 40B requirements, at the expense of new housing for young families.
Still, the Berkeley researchers find a lot to like about our state’s often-criticized affordable housing law – so much so that they want a California 40B.
And, as they say, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
