Friends And Enemies Of 40B Ready For Fight | As the November election nears, both sides of the 40B battle are gathering steam
It’s the best chance for middle-income working people to achieve the American Dream of home ownership. Or, it’s a sop to big developers at the expense of local communities’ autonomy. It’s the key to keeping young, educated workers in Massachusetts. Or, it’s an inefficient and corrupt method for getting results that could be better achieved any number of other ways.
Now that a proposal to repeal the state’s main affordable housing law, Chapter 40B, has made it to the ballot, forces on both sides are lining up their best arguments and getting ready to take them to the voters before Nov. 2.
So, what exactly is 40B? Who likes it? Who hates it? And what are they doing about it?
First, the basics.
Passed in 1969, the law applies mainly to communities where less than 10 percent of the housing stock is considered affordable. In those cities and towns, developers have the right to propose so-called 40B projects. Twenty to 25 percent of the units in these projects need to be affordable. Approval is handled by the local zoning board of appeals, rather than the planning board and other agencies, and developers can appeal any denials to a state committee. The developments can also pack in more units per acre than local bylaws normally allow.
Who’s for repeal?
The Coalition to Repeal Chapter 40B is a collection of local organizations, most of which formed to oppose specific local 40B developments. Director John V. Belskis said his mailing list has about 500 names on it, representing everything from individuals to organizations with 100 or more members.
Who wants to keep the law?
The Campaign to Protect the Affordable Housing Law is a far more diverse coalition than the pro-repeal group. Its website touts a long list of supporters, including leaders of civic groups, housing rights and community development organizations, real estate agents and business leaders. Its chair is Tripp Jones, co-founder of the prominent think tank MassInc. According to spokeswoman Francy Ronayne, the three major candidates for governor are all on board, too.
Who backs the groups?
So far, about 20 groups have reported donations worth more than $230,000 to the effort to keep 40B during this election cycle. The biggest donations were $108,300 from Boston-based Citizens Housing and Planning Association, $50,000 from the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corps. and another $50,000 from the National Apartment Association.
Guy Webb, executive director of the Builders Association of Central Massachusetts, said his organization and state and national developers groups have also contributed to the effort, though he’s not sure how much they’ve donated.
In a 2009 year-end report, the anti-40B forces reported getting $283,900 in in-kind contributions related to signature gathering from The Slow Growth Initiative of Chelmsford. The group has been controversial locally, and Attorney General Martha Coakley’s office demanded earlier this year that it stop soliciting donations since it isn’t registered as a charity with the state. It has since changed its name to The Better Not Bigger Alliance. According to press reports, the organization is funded by Roland Van Liew, president of the Chelmsford IT training company Hands On Technology Transfer.
The campaign against 40B also received just over $3,000 in small donations, mostly from individuals.
Is 40B needed to make housing affordable?
According to Ronayne, the law is responsible for 80 percent of affordable housing built outside the state’s major cities over the past decade.
“Businesses of all sizes need the affordable housing law so employees can afford to live here,” she said.
But Belskis said his coalition is entirely supportive of affordable housing. He said he would have preferred to see the Massachusetts Legislature tweak the existing law, but since it’s repeatedly refused to do so, the next best thing is to repeal it and get something else put in its place. Belskis said other states use programs like “inclusionary zoning,” which demands that a percentage of all new developments are made affordable.
To developers, though, those sorts of programs aren’t viable. Webb said it’s impossible to buy land in most parts of the state and build a house that a family making $55,000 a year can afford. The extra-dense developments allowed by Chapter 40B are the only way to make the numbers work, he said.
How generous is 40B to developers?
The law caps the profit a developer can make on a 40B project at 20 percent. According to Belkis, that’s well above a typical national level of 10 to 12 percent profitability for residential developments. Massachusetts Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan has found many cases where developers hid excess profits from 40B projects. But supporters of the law argue many of the groups behind 40B projects are nonprofits that aren’t driven by the bottom line.
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