Forty years after passage of Massachusetts' 40B affordable housing law, supporters can point to some 56,000 new homes and apartments for people with moderate incomes. A lot of them might not have been built without what is sometimes called the anti-snob zoning law.
But while the oft-maligned law has been effective in creating housing for people of moderate means, it has failed to meet one of the major goals that prompted its passage.
As a tool to promote diversity in housing, 40B has had negligible impact.
The North Shore's small towns and suburbs remain almost exclusively white and well-to-do, while their less prosperous neighboring cities have provided nearly all the affordable housing that has been created locally in the past four decades.
For example, in 1972, three years after passage of the law, just 3.2 percent of the housing in Salem was deemed affordable (that is, within reach of people earning no more than 80 percent of the median income in Essex County).
This year, Salem, which had the second-lowest household income on the North Shore in the 2000 census, has the highest rate of affordable housing in the region, 12.85 percent. Similar advances have occurred in Beverly, Peabody and Danvers.
At the other end of the map, geographically and financially, Boxford residents enjoyed the highest household incomes on the 2000 Census, $113,212. Yet in 40 years, its stock of affordable housing has grown at a glacial pace and still hasn't hit even 1 percent.
In Middleton, which experienced an explosion in construction of high-end homes in the past five years, the percentage of affordable housing has actually declined in the past 12 years.
To some extent, the outcome may have been inevitable, said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, which lobbies for affordable housing.
While he believes affluent communities have made progress, "the cities are always going to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden," Gornstein said.
The pattern on the North Shore isn't unique, he added. "We see it in other regions, too."
Chapter 40B was enacted in part as a response to the federal Fair Housing Act of 1968, which was itself a product of the racial strife that engulfed America in the 1960s. With school integration under way, lawmakers sought to end discriminatory housing practices.
As Massachusetts urban legislators of the day surveyed the landscape, they concluded that suburban communities were not sharing the burden of providing affordable housing. They believed that without the law, wealthy communities' zoning would exclude all but the few.
"There was a white noose around the cities," said affordable housing consultant Bob Engler, who was working on his thesis on 40B at the time of its passage. "It was no different than today — people were priced out."
Some have argued that smaller communities such as Boxford, with no public transportation, nearly no jobs and no town center, are ill-suited for affordable housing.
Engler disagrees, saying he's sure there are plenty of people on moderate incomes who would love to live the Boxford lifestyle, and would be happy to commute a fair distance to do so, just like the people who already live there.
"They have cars, too," Engler said.
Lack of leadership
So why have so many towns failed to make progress on affordable housing?
Patrick Wilson is a member of Wenham's Affordable Housing Trust who has been attacking the problem for several years. Not a single affordable housing project has been completed in Wenham in at least a decade, Wilson said, and perception is often to blame.
"There's kind of a stigma that goes along with it," he said, "which is too bad."
To meet the challenge of identifying available land for a project and finding the money to pay for it, "you need an organized effort by town government," Wilson said.
But most local leaders prefer to avoid touching what has become the third rail of small-town politics, he said.
Another obstacle in small towns is the long-standing prohibition on multifamily housing, which can help make housing affordable.
"Density scares New Englanders," Engler said.
Wenham is a bit of an anomaly with its affordable housing. It had the third-highest household income on the census, yet has 8.9 percent of its housing certified as affordable. But almost all of the affordable units are elderly apartments at Enon Village, which was built with state aid many years ago.
Wilson said many smaller communities have other constraints that limit opportunities for suitable projects. With extensive wetlands and no sewer system, buildable land is at a premium in Wenham, he said.
Barbara Jessel, chairman of the Board of Selectmen in Boxford, noted homeowners there also have to dig private wells for water, further increasing the cost of new construction. But that has hardly been the biggest impediment to 40B projects in town.
Two years ago, there was a proposal for a new ball field and two affordable duplexes next to the West Boxford Library. Neighbors mounted concerted opposition at Town Meeting, and the project was defeated. Although the duplexes would have been screened behind two rows of trees, Jessel said some speakers at Town Meeting claimed the buildings would destroy the visual appeal of the neighborhood.
"There's no question neighborhood opposition is a factor," Jessel said.
In the past several years, many communities have sought to restrict new housing projects, both market-rate and affordable, to older people of retirement age. In fact, Engler said, the rush was so strong there's a glut of those properties available.
Responding to threats?
Much of the venom spewed over 40B is directed at developers.
Critics frequently contend that developers use the law as a threat to obtain concessions on affordable projects. Yet it isn't easy to find local cases where that has actually happened.
Ipswich Town Planner Glenn Gibbs could recall only one instance when a developer vaguely hinted at such a threat before quickly dropping his project.
The housing law allows communities to reject 40B projects if 10 percent of their housing is certified as affordable. Statewide, only 51 communities have reached that plateau.
Whatever the shortcomings of the law, Engler believes it has been beneficial. Left to their own devices, he believes most towns would have created even less affordable housing than they have.
"The free market simply doesn't work to build affordable housing," he said. "Builders need help to make the numbers work."
Staff writer Steve Landwehr can be reached at 978-338-2660 or by e-mail at slandwehr@salem news.com.
How does 40B work?
The law allows local zoning boards to issue a "comprehensive permit" to developers who pledge to make 20 percent to 25 percent of their projects affordable for people making no more than 80 percent of the median income in Essex County.
In 2009, that amounted to $46,300 for a single person, and up to $66,150 for a family of four.
Developers can avail themselves of the comprehensive permit in any community where less than 10 percent of the housing stock is deemed affordable. The advantage is that rather than make multiple appearances before a succession of regulatory boards, developers have to deal only with a zoning board, which is supposed to solicit input from other town boards.
Communities can get a one-year reprieve from such developments if they adopt a plan acceptable to the state to produce more affordable housing and then make an incremental advance in doing so.
Developers of 40B projects agree to limit their profit to a maximum of 20 percent for home sales and 10 percent per year for apartments and other rental units.
Therefore, the law allows them, in some cases, to skirt local zoning bylaws and wetlands regulations, in order to earn a profit.
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