Developers proposing affordable housing face stiff resistance despite Massachusetts’ still-rising home prices, with median single-family sales prices topping $548,000 in February. iStock photo
We need more affordable housing.
That statement is an almost universal assessment of Massachusetts and the country. And the need impacts all of us: the housing price squeeze affects decisions about where people live here, or even if we live here at all. Perhaps if we got more granular about what we mean when we say “affordable,” we would have more success creating affordable homes and talking with each other rather than – at best – past each other.
To start, developers face a quagmire, especially when proposing affordable housing or some affordable housing within a development. The conversation can quickly turn to an obvious question: affordable to whom? Fair enough, but developers often fear being transparent, as they expect someone will not like their answer, no matter what they say. Better to shake off the query and hope people move on.
Even if the project succeeds, the long-term result may create another challenge. A disappointed community cries “bait and switch!” and resistance to development grows. New residents may be left with the stigma and shadow from the opaque process of building their home.
A Recipe for Transparency
As a first step, we need transparency and consistency about which we are talking about. In an ideal world, there would be an opportunity to match the affordability needed by our state and individual communities with the affordability provided by a building.
That conversation can happen if we regularly, openly and with consistent language distinguish between three categories of affordable:
- A building aiming to provide a product less expensive than what’s already available.
- A property regulated or in agreement to provide below-market rents, typically for more moderate-income households.
- Properties with government support where rent is based on income and adjusts to a household’s income in order to provide quality housing for lower-income households entirely priced out of our market.
The first category, while perhaps done with all the best intentions, can fluctuate with the market and goals of a new owner. Long-term affordability is not guaranteed. The latter two categories are coupled with long-term restrictions. The first category is commonly referred to as naturally occurring affordable housing. The second is commonly called workforce housing or “missing middle” and the last falls under the term subsidized housing – or, as policymakers are starting to say, “affordable with a capital ‘A.’”
Jennifer Gilbert
Diverse Development Types Fill Needs
In Massachusetts, these categories coexist everywhere we look. Across the street from my home is naturally occurring affordable housing, a multifamily building where the landlord family (now retired to Florida) intentionally keeps things lower cost. Within a 10-minute walk is an otherwise market-rate building which due to my city’s inclusionary housing policy has several dozen apartments for people making 50 to 80 percent of area median income. Just a few blocks from there is a newly renovated capital “A” affordable development that allows 175 families to live within walking distance of a MBTA stop in a community where the market rent averages $3,000 per month.
These units are all someone’s home. They all serve real needs. If we want a future where everyone can find a home that is affordable to them and our communities benefit from diversity in all respects – the receptionist who checked you in for your annual physical, the nursing assistant who took your blood pressure and the physician’s assistant who spent time asking good questions to keep you healthy – we need to have enough of each category so that everyone can live here.
Jennifer Gilbert is founder and executive director of Housing Navigator Massachusetts.
