You may hear more about Chapter 40B in the next 12 months than you have in the 40 years it's been on the books in Massachusetts.
Designed to encourage the construction of "affordable" housing, some want to reform it, while others want to abolish it outright. Often referred to as the "anti-snob zoning law," the statute allows developers to bypass local zoning ordinances in those communities in which more than 90 percent of the housing stock is deemed unaffordable to families earning less than 80 percent of the median household income.
Proponents say the law has helped create 55,000 units of reasonably priced housing that might not otherwise have been built over the past 40 years.
Critics on one side of the divide say it has not worked well enough and can point to the fact that in Boxford, with a median income of $113,212 according to the 2000 Census, only 0.88 percent of the housing stock is considered affordable. And according to data supplied by the Citizens' Housing and Planning Association, the figures are only slightly better in other affluent suburbs here on the North Shore.
On the other hand, those who favor repeal say the law has been abused by developers seeking to force undesirable projects on communities that simply want to preserve their existing character.
Debate will first proceed on Beacon Hill where the Legislature faces a May 4 deadline to make major changes in the law. Otherwise, the Coalition for the Repeal of 40B need collect only an additional 11,099 signatures by early July to put the matter before voters in November.
Unfortunately, many of the changes implemented to date have been of primarily of the cosmetic variety. Over the years, for instance, communities have been allowed to count elderly housing, group homes and mobile units in order to meet the 10 percent threshold.
More substantive, but reasonable, reform of the law might make sense. Measures should be enacted to prevent rapacious development intended solely to reap the builder a quick profit. And perhaps there should be a provision to reward those communities, like Salem, that have historically accommodated the housing needs of those newly arrived in this country and others of limited means.
But the law should not be jettisoned completely. Indeed, the state should make better use of it to discourage communities from viewing their zoning regulations as an exclusionary device, rather than as a tool to shape future development.
