Schools, municipal offices, libraries, grocery stores, retail shops, small businesses, and restaurants are the foundation of our Massachusetts communities. These establishments provide residents daily services and comforts while creating a local economy. The people behind these establishments include teachers, municipal workers, store clerks and managers, mechanics, restaurant staff, office staff, public safety officials and many other positions. They all play a role in sustaining the community. The salaries attached to these positions vary, but many provide only modest incomes.

Communities need to make a concerted effort to ensure that homes are available for these modest-income households. The task is complicated for several reasons. First, increasing construction and land costs have driven up the cost of development projects, especially after Hurricane Katrina. Developers also profit more by building luxury homes, which has spurred the construction of “McMansion” subdivisions throughout the state. At the same time, many cities and towns do not zone to allow more affordable multi-family dwellings or homes on smaller lots to be built. Further compounding the state’s housing crisis, affordable housing proposals often face serious opposition from community residents.

Massachusetts has made national headlines these last few years because of our souring housing prices. A report released in September 2005 by The Boston Foundation, Citizen’s Housing and Planning Association and the Center for Urban and Regional Policy at Northeastern University found that Boston is the most expensive metropolitan area in the country beating New York City and San Francisco. The price of a home in the Boston area increased more than 37 percent between 2001 and 2004. The report also concludes that the median income of 83 percent of the Greater Boston communities surveyed is not high enough for a resident to pay for a median-priced home in the city or town where a resident currently lives. Only one community (Millville) is affordable to first-time homebuyers earning 80 percent of the Greater Boston median income.

Wages in the metropolitan areas of Springfield and Worcester have not kept up with the rapidly escalating costs of housing either. The Center for Housing Policy’s “Paycheck to Paycheck 2005 Findings” compares the median incomes for over sixty occupations with the needed salary to afford a median-priced home. A small fraction of these occupations provides the salary needed to purchase a median-priced home in these central and western Massachusetts communities.

As people have been and are pushed out of urban centers because of expensive housing, the concern about where and how housing has been and is being built is a growing concern. First, existing housing – particularly affordable housing – should be preserved. Second, new housing should be directed to town centers or other developed areas close to town services to preserve open space, to utilize existing infrastructure and to ensure people are close to centers of employment. Close proximity to employment helps to provide modest-income households job opportunity and flexibility, ease the stress and financial burden of long commutes and lessen a household’s dependence on the automobile. Housing should also be built more densely than it has in recent years.

Providing more housing opportunities while also preserving the picturesque landscape of the Commonwealth will not come without creativity, collaboration and the support of local and state government.

Tools for building smart housing

Chapter 40B or The Comprehensive Permit Law
Instituted in 1969 in Massachusetts because of a shortage in the supply of affordable housing, Chapter 40B aims to encourage the creation of affordable housing without using state or federal funds. Over the years, 40B has produced over 35,000 housing units with 22,000 of these units available to people making 80 percent or less than the Area Median Income. Municipalities with an affordable housing stock of less than 10 percent of their total housing must provide developers of affordable housing with a streamlined process through the permitting phase. In addition, developers may also build multi-family structures or single-family houses at higher densities than normally permitted through local zoning. This state law has allowed many projects to be built – mixed-income condominiums, single-family subdivisions, multi-family rental units and elderly housing – that most likely would not have been built under the existing zoning. It has also served as the impetus for towns and cities to strategize about ways to build affordable housing in their community to meet the goal of 10 percent so the town or city may have more control over the local development.

Chapter 40R, or Smart Growth Zoning Districts
Chapter 40R, signed into law in 2004, encourages municipalities to establish “smart growth zoning districts,” or zoning which overlays one or more current districts and allows developers to follow the zoning codes of either of the districts. These districts must be located near transit stops, town centers, commercial area or underused industrial properties. Smart growth zoning districts may overlay either or both residential and commercial parts of town. In these areas, the smart growth zoning requires that a minimum of 20 percent of new residential developments with 12 or more units be affordable. The Commonwealth will give the following “housing incentive payments” for having this kind of development: $10,000 for up to 20 units; $75,000 for 21-100 units; $200,000 for 101-200 units; $350,000 for 201-500 units and $600,000 for 501 or more housing units. In addition to this, a payment of $3,000 for each new unit will be given to a town or city when the building permit is issued. As of winter 2005, no city or town has yet formed a smart growth zoning district.

Chapter 40S
Passed in November 2005, Chapter 40S provides education funds to communities creating smart growth zoning districts through Chapter 40R to ensure that communities can continue to keep up with any increase in school enrollment caused by the increase in housing.

Brownfields Redevelopment
Brownfields are polluted industrial sites that are abandoned or underused. Through remediation and abatement of contaminants, these sites can be redeveloped into commercial or residential space. Brownfields redevelopment eliminates blight, increases housing opportunity and can spur economic development within a community. Funds are available through both state and federal programs to assist with the expense of brownfields remediation.

Inclusionary zoning
Inclusionary zoning regulations, passed at the local level of government in Massachusetts, requires developers to include affordable housing units in a market rate residential development, usually stipulated as a minimum percentage of total units. The requirement of affordable units is usually triggered by a threshold number of units to be built or refurbished in a market rate residential development. The municipality generally enforces the requirement if the developer is building more than a specified number of units or specified square footage of residential development. The affordability of the units is maintained through deed restriction for typically for 10 or 20 years and in some cases in perpetuity. In order to make sure the developer can afford to build the development, density bonuses may be offered. These allow for more units to be built in order to cover the cost of building affordable units. Over 100 Massachusetts communities have adopted inclusionary zoning, although, for various reasons, the policy has not resulted in the construction of many affordable units.

Community Preservation Act
The former Governor of Massachusetts, Paul Celluci signed the Community Preservation Act (CPA) into law September in 2000. Voters must vote to adopt a CPA for their own municipality. Once passed, the CPA allows municipalities to add a property tax surcharge of up to 3 percent for the specific purpose of protecting their historic and environmental resources and providing more affordable housing. These funds are then matched by the state providing more incentive for the adoption of the CPA. State funds to pay communities with an adopted CPA come from a new fee at the registries of deeds. Municipalities must use 10 percent of their funds for the preservation or acquisition of each of the following: natural resources, affordable housing and historical resources. The remaining 70 percent can be divided in any way among these three initiatives. Local legislators appoint a committee to draft plans for the use of the funds and plans are open for comment and approval by the public. Over 75 communities have adopted the Community Preservation Act.

Great links to more housing information

Citizen’s Housing and Planning Association – www.chapa.org

National Housing Conference - http://www.nhc.org

The Boston Foundation - http://www.bostonfoundation.org

Fair Housing Center of Greater Boston - http://www.bostonfairhousing.org/

National Housing Conference’s “Paycheck to Paycheck” interactive website - http://www.nhc.org/chp/p2p/

A few selected reports on housing

“Affordable Housing and Smart Growth: Making the Connection” - http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/pdf/epa_ah_sg.pdf

“Building a Better Urban Future: New Directions for Housing Policies in Weak Market Cities,” - http://www.chapa.org/NHI_HousingReport.pdf

The Greater Boston Housing Report Card 2004 - http://www.curp.neu.edu/publications/reports.htm#reportcard2004

“Racial Equity and Opportunity in Metro Boston Job Markets”, Harvard Civil Rights Project - http://www.civilrightsproject.harvard.edu/research/metro/ boston_employment.pdf