As homeowners dealing with crumbling concrete foundations implored lawmakers Tuesday to deliver financial assistance, House Democrats declined to support a budget amendment to create a relief fund seeded with $100 million.
Homeowners clamoring for state help as they deal with the hefty costs of fixing their crumbling foundations, which could eventually render their houses unlivable, called on Gov. Maura Healey Wednesday to wield her executive power to kickstart a potential solution.
As renters and would-be homebuyers face an affordability crisis, a leading trade group for the people who facilitate home sales is eyeing new building projects as the solution.
Since a testing grant program was established in 2019, it appears that one or more additional quarries could also be contaminated, and the problem’s full scope is still hard to see.
Lawmakers are actively working on legislation to address foundations beneath homes in central Massachusetts that are crumbling due to contaminated concrete sourced from a Connecticut quarry, a state senator says.
With the foundations of thousands of homes in Massachusetts and Connecticut crumbling thanks to contaminated aggregate, a group of Nutmeg State legislators say all quarries need better quality contros to prevent the problem in the future.
The state legislature may need to come up with $350 million in the coming years to help thousands of homeowners from Auburn to Springfield whose foundations are contaminated with a mineral that makes them crumble.
Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, joined members of Connecticut’s congressional delegation in seeking $4 million to be set aside so an iron sulfide that has caused homeowners’ foundations in both states to crumble can be researched.
The crumbling concrete foundations that have ruined the lives of hundreds of Connecticut homeowners and presented big problems for real estate agents there have also been found in Massachusetts, and the growing consensus is that there are more here than previously thought.
Concrete containing the mineral pyrrhotite from the now-defunct JJ Mottes concrete company in Connecticut has been known to be the source of crumbling foundations in as many as 34,000 homes in that state for years.
