The YIMBY revolution has finally arrived in Boston’s suburbs.
The resignation of all four members of the Carlisle Housing Authority may not exactly be “the shot heard around the world” that made nearby Lexington immortal in 1775. But this rebellious move by a group of reasonable citizens, fed up with their town’s snobby anti-housing policies, has the potential to provide some badly needed pushback to the suburban NIMBY politicians and cranks that have choked off construction of badly needed new apartments and new homes.
“It is clear to us that until there is a major change of priorities among Carlisle town leadership, there will be no new affordable housing built in Carlisle under the planning and direction of the town,” reads the Sept. 10 letter by the four now former Carlisle housing authority members.
If you are just tuning in, the YIMBY movement (Yes In My Backyard) has started to gain momentum in cities across the country where irrational – and often bigoted – resistance to new housing has stoked growing affordability crises.
The YIMBY movement has caught on in California, where home prices and rents are even loonier than in Greater Boston, and in Seattle, where the housing market is struggling to keep up with expansion by Amazon and other tech giants.
This build-our-way-to-lower-prices movement has also gained a foothold in Boston’s urban core, with Roxbury Community College this weekend having hosted a national YIMBYtown conference. YIMBY groups can be found in Boston neighborhoods as well as inner suburbs like Newton and Cambridge.
The Alliance for a Better Cambridge, a loud and proud NIMBY group, shouted out its support to the Carlisle four – on Facebook anyway – after their group resignation.
Scott Van Voorhis
A YIMBY Revolution
Despite a brief mention in a Globe piece well more than a year ago, though, the YIMBY movement has yet to make itself heard much in the suburbs of Greater Boston where, frankly, it is most needed.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and, for the most part, his counterparts in the inner burbs, understand the need for more housing. The economic capital of New England, Boston and its urban core is booming, but leaders like Walsh also realize that growth is unsustainable without more apartments and condos for all those techies, biotech geeks and researchers pouring in.
With a few honorable exceptions, the suburbs are nowhere close to pulling their weight when it comes to opening their doors to the new housing that is so clearly needed.
It’s easily forgotten, but the bulk of Greater Boston’s population lives not in Boston, which has a population of over 667,000, but in the suburbs, where many of the region’s remaining 4 million residents live.
But the folks who run small towns and bedroom communities along 128 and 495 clearly feel no larger societal obligation. Too many suburban boards of selectmen are either dominated by grouchy NIMBY-types or panderers who don’t have the backbone to stand up to bigoted loudmouths spewing nonsense about new apartments being a magnet for crime, drugs and other social ills.
And from the looks of it, Carlisle is a prime example of a suburban Boston town that deserves a kick in the pants for its efforts to block the construction of new apartments with affordable rents.
Carlisle selectmen haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory, refusing to release money – already approved by voters at town meeting – to hire a new housing coordinator after the previous one left, according to the resignation letter penned by the now former Carlisle housing authority members,
Not surprisingly, this was a major sore point for the housing authority’s board, who are volunteers with day jobs and without the expertise and time to push forward on their own proposals for new apartments.
The Carlisle Housing Trust, formed to help build affordable housing in a town where the median sale price is well over $860,000, is a joke.
The trust, with a board dominated by the aforementioned anti-affordable-housing selectmen, refused to release money for a study on what Carlisle can do to encourage the construction of affordable rental units. Just 2.9 percent of housing units in town are considered affordable by state housing regulators, well below the required 10 percent. Even equally wealthy Concord is doing better than that at almost 12 percent, with other neighboring and nearby towns at double or triple Carlisle’s measly quotient.
Incredibly, the so-called Carlisle Affordable Housing Trust has “never discussed, proposed nor taken any action to further the development of affordable housing in Carlisle,” states the letter by the renegade housing authority board members.
Even more damning is this line: “Numerous (housing) trust members have said during meetings that they are only interested in helping people who currently live or work in town, which would clearly discriminate against non-Carlisle citizens in violation of both state and federal law.”
A recent study by BU researchers that looked at opposition to new housing in Boston’s suburbs called out “racially coded” objections often used by NIMBY opponents. Maybe it’s just parochial thinking, not racially coded doubletalk, but it certainly sounds a bit fishy.
“Over the last four years, the Carlisle board of selectmen, whose members also comprise five of the seven members on the Carlisle Affordable Housing Trust, has blocked every realistic proposal to aid the development of affordable housing,” the letter notes.
Cheers to these four brave local officials, Mark Levitan, Carolyn Ing, Morgen Bearse and Steve Pearlman.
You’ve delivered the YIMBY wakeup call the suburbs of Greater Boston have so badly needed. Here’s hoping it sparks a housing revolution in Carlisle and suburbs across the region.
Scott Van Voorhis is Banker & Tradesman’s columnist; opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
