It’s funny how election season always coincides with the winding down of hurricane season. And just as each season ends, we can’t help but look ahead to the next.
After our most recent vote, the prospect of more storms to come should serve as a wakeup call to some local developers, community activists and homebuilders.
Affordable housing advocates were rightfully relieved, perhaps even boastful, after a ballot initiative seeking the abolition of Massachusetts’ venerable Chapter 40B affordable housing law was roundly defeated last week.
For now, the law will stay on our books as we know it – providing incentives for developers, builders and planners alike to continue their efforts to increase the state’s thin supply of affordable housing, however marginally.
But proponents should keep in mind that last week’s win in support of the decades-old law is certainly not permanent.
In other words, while the storm of 40B opposition may have only side-swiped the Bay State, there are always more clouds gathering on the horizon.
A meagerly-funded, ill-marketed campaign to repeal the law garnered 42 percent of the popular vote last week. Almost 900,000 residents checked “yes” to abolish the measure – an effort backed, in part, by somewhat fringe groups arguing for zero population growth.
This should worry those same supporters who bragged of a “decisive victory” over their opponents.
This election proved, if nothing else, that 40B is not a given in Massachusetts – even after four decades of enforcement. For all the good supporters say the law has done (and it has helped create a lot of affordable housing, flaws notwithstanding), it’s no longer taboo or radical to assume that a law enacted in 1969 might be long due for an overhaul.
In fact, we can’t help but think that if opponents of 40B had instead lobbied for a less extreme version of substantial reforms to the law, rather than its outright removal from the books, then we might be having an entirely different discussion.
The various groups in favor of striking down 40B aren’t going away, folks. In fact, they’re getting stronger.
In 2008, opponents of the law failed – by a large margin – to gather enough signatures to even have the question appear on the ballot.
Just two years later, not only did they gather enough signatures to put the measure before voters, they convinced 896,669 residents to vote with them.
The law’s supporters numbered 1,249,675, for a margin of victory of 353,006 votes. Imagine if half of those 353,000 votes had gone the other way?
Is it so inconceivable to assume that a better-funded, more active campaign against the law may be able to swing 175,000 and change (or more) voters to their side in time for the next election? We don’t think so.
We realize that every election is different, of course, and that today’s hot-button issue is sometimes tomorrow’s afterthought. It’s possible that, in the face of even stiffer resistance down the road, the supporters of 40B will run an even stronger campaign next time, luring more supporters out of the woodwork to defeat opponents yet again.
We hope so. For all its warts, we do tend to agree with the basic principles of 40B – especially in a place like Massachusetts, where endless bureaucracy and a defiant independent spirit (if occasionally manifested in a NIMBY attitude) too often conspire to defeat even the most modest proposals.
But we’re not blind to the fact that 40B’s opponents are clearly striking some kind of nerve in the commonwealth. We can only hope that proponents of the law have their eyes open, as well.
Another storm season is fast approaching. The Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association, Homebuilders Association of Massachusetts and every other 40B advocacy group would do well to don their foul-weather gear, batten down the hatches and prepare for a fight.
