Fighting growth is no option for Natick planner
1,000 affordable units on the way
With close to 1,000 40B affordable housing units in the pipeline, Natick is poised to grow in a big way in the next five years or so.
Whether it wants to or not.
Because less than 10 percent of the town's available housing is deemed "affordable" by the state, Natick is at the mercy of developers looking to take advantage of state 40B housing laws that will increase density in the town and add more traffic to its already at-capacity roadways.
Ten percent rule
Under state housing law, individual municipalities are required to have at least 10 percent of their total housing designated as affordable, explained Patrick Reffet, Natick's community development director.
If the amount of affordable housing is below that threshold, Reffet said, the state can essentially force communities to accept housing and development projects that might otherwise go unapproved by local zoning boards.
"(The state) basically does have the ability and consistently does make rulings that say, 'You haven't met your 10 percent, so here's a project that's going to expand your affordable housing. We don't care that you don't like it, we don't care if it doesn't fit in, you're gonna have it, like it or not,'" Reffet said.
While Reffet acknowledged a regional and a local need for affordable housing, he said the fact that state authorities can over-rule town zoning board of appeals decisions makes planning for the future difficult.
He said the town works hard to create an excess in capacity in terms of road usage, parking and sewer capacity, not to mention open land, only to see it eyed by developers hungry to locate 40B projects in the town.
Patrick Reffet, community developmentTaking advantage
"When communities do have excess capacity, developers jump in there and take advantage," Reffet said. "It's almost a detriment to have that capacity, because you're just going to get exploited by 40B projects that do little to contribute or add more infrastructure."
Guy Webb, executive director of the Builder's Association of Central Massachusetts, said the reason the 40B law exists in the first place is to fill a critical need for housing in the state.
"Towns and cities have an obligation to produce housing," Webb said. "Unfortunately, most aren't. Originally, people nicknamed 40B the 'anti-snob zoning law' because towns only wanted expensive housing and certain income levels in their town. 40B is a means to allow affordable housing to happen."
Webb also said that just because a project is 40B eligible, it is by no means guaranteed approval, either by the town or the state. It still must meet mandated environmental and other strict regulations.
Additionally, Webb said, developers that agree to 40B regulations are also agreeing to put a cap on their profits by providing at least 20 percent of their final product at a less profitable rate.
Finding balance
Martha White, acting town administrator for Natick, said 40B developments do service a critical need for affordable housing, but because they are so hard to ignore, they often can distract a municipality from serving all of its residents.
"Towns work so hard to meet the 10 percent objective, it's sometimes challenging to remember that that housing is only addressing the needs of a certain challenged portion of the population," White said.
Within the town, White said, there are those with a high enough income to afford a traditional home and those with low enough incomes to qualify for 40B assistance. White said she is worried about under-serving those families and individuals in the middle.
The affordable units will come on line in Natick as soon as next summer, Reffet said. The projects include the 183-unit Cloverleaf Apartment complex next to the Cloverleaf shopping center on Speen Street, which is already under construction.
The Cloverleaf project will be followed by 268 condo units in the South Natick Hills project, which is expected to break ground next spring off of South Main Street, about a mile south of downtown, Reffet said.
Reffet said the South Natick Hills project was originally proposed as a 300-unit development, but the town was able to "shave off" some of the units. Natick was not as lucky with a smaller project on Grant Street.
Reffet explained that there were, and still are, worries that a 24-unit development at 8-10 Grant St. would over-burden parking capacity in the area. The town approved development for 16 units, but all 24 were approved by the state after the developer appealed the town's decision, Reffet said.
"The state essentially said, 'Well we know nobody has really looked closely at the economics here, but in any case, you're less than your 10 percent, so we're gonna give it to them,'" he said.
Because the town cannot outright deny 40B applications because it is under the 10 percent threshold, Reffet said they are working to manage the 40Bs to both meet the threshold quickly and to place the largest developments where they make the most sense.
"I'd rather have (the people that will be living in the new developments) closer to where it is they are going rather than in a predicament where they have to drive through neighborhood after neighborhood to get to a main artery," Reffet said. "Putting a development on South Main Street, that's one of the issues. If you're going to be living there and working in Boston, you're going to have to get on Route 9 or the 'Pike, and you're going to go through multiple neighborhoods to get there. That's certainly less preferable to having you closely located to these main arteries."
When the new developments open, Reffet said, the town should be very close to its 10 percent affordable housing threshold, which will allow some breathing space.
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