So Senator Brown, just what were you thinking when you argued that suburban towns should be allowed to count prison cells at Walpole and other notorious lockups as affordable housing?
It’s a question that has stumped me now for more than a decade since I broke a story that Brown, then an obscure state representative from Wrentham, was pushing legislation that would do just that.
Suburban towns were pushing back hard back in the early 2000s against the commonwealth’s long-time affordable housing statute, Chapter 40B. The law then, and now, gives developers the power to override local zoning rules – and NIMBY officials – and build subsidized apartments if a particular town is under the threshold for having a percentage of its housing units deemed “affordable.”
Brown offered up a devilish solution – let towns count prison cells toward their affordable housing quotas.
“A lot of communities have already done their fair share helping out with [the state’s] eyesores or dumping grounds,” Brown told me then.
So, why do I bring it up now?
Well if Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s claims made years ago of Native American blood are relevant, certainly Brown’s none-too-enlightened views on affordable housing are fair game as well. And probably more relevant to the things that actually matter to voters, like home prices and apartment rents – rather than how many, if any, Cherokee ancestors Warren has on her family tree.
Misplaced Priorities?
Certainly Brown’s attempts to scuttle the 40B law – by getting towns off the hook by letting them count prison cells as apartments – made for good politics.
All too often, developers looking to build in the suburbs face a rocky reception from local officials and neighbors for whom just about any proposal is one too many. And housing, especially apartments – even more so if some of them are subsidized – makes all those suburban NIMBY types absolutely froth at the mouth.
The result has been decades of under-building that has kept home prices and rents artificially high across Greater Boston and Massachusetts. Because of this, real estate prices never really go down in the Boston area – they just simmer during downturns and boil over when times turn good again.
Brown has built a carefully crafted, regular-Joe political style – he likes to play the down-to-earth guy who knows what it’s like to make ends meet. But it’s hard to square this image with Brown’s buffoonery on what may be the most pressing economic issue facing everyday voters in Massachusetts – the high cost of housing.
No one-off deal, Brown spent years in the Legislature taking aim at 40B. A 2010 referendum inspired in part by efforts like his came close to shutting down work on thousands of rental units across the state.
Housing Bigotry
But it’s more than just wretched housing economic policy that we are talking about here.
Instead of facing this problem head on, Brown pandered to the misconceptions – and outright housing bigotry – of his constituents.
And make no mistake, there is a form of bigotry at work here.
Opponents of subsidized apartment complexes often conflate these projects with urban-style, public housing projects packed with welfare recipients. And Brown’s attempt to get prison cells counted as affordable housing – as if tenants in subsidized apartments were some sort of plague akin to convicted felons – surely only helped fuel such prejudice.
No matter that most of the apartment projects built under 40B that Brown and other critics have wanted to scuttle feature mostly market-rate apartments with a minority – say, 20 percent – of subsidized units. And those provide a safety valve for the lower paid school teachers and trash collectors who might not otherwise be able to afford to live in a given town.
Frankly, there is a phobia about apartments and renters in the suburbs that is highly illogical and just plain wrong.
When voters in the town of Harvard rejected plans to turn an old, empty barracks at the former Fort Devens into housing, some at last spring’s town meeting practically hyperventilated over the supposedly deleterious effects of having children of renters in local classrooms.
Are they Brown supporters? Who knows.
But our esteemed senator would be the last one to set them straight, that’s for sure.
Scott Van Voorhis can be reached at
sbvanvoorhis@hotmail.com.
