Why I'm voting No on removing 40B.

[dsrtao]

(Relevant only to Massachusettsians.)

40B is not perfect, and isn't even exceptionally good, but the way to overturn it is to propose something better, not to kill it and hope that someone will come up with something better later.

Comments

[dlevey.livejournal.com]

That was my thinking, too. In my town (Framingham) I've heard anti-40B talk coupled with talk about "those people". That's what would win if 40B were removed.

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

100% agreed.

[tpau]

100% with you on that one...

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I've gotten to know the fellow that sponsored Question 2 (online: I wouldn't know him on the street).

41 years, and no substantial reform. No substantial improvement in housing. The housing built doesn't help the really poor. The Inspector General's report concluded 40B was rife with fraud.

But the developers love it.

For my town to reach its 40B goals through 40B alone, we'd have to double the amount of housing in the town overall. We can't.

It's a bad law.

Why doesn't it change through the legislative process? Because the law (because of its flaws) has the support of powerful interests that have lots of campaign money.

Vote as you see fit. I voted in favor.

[shayde.livejournal.com]

Destruction is not the path to reform, despite what the tea partiers say.

If it weren't for 40b, mosaic commons (http://www.mosaic-commons.org) wouldn't exist.

Yes the law needs reform. Push for reform then. Don't push for repeal.

"Rife with fraud"? Show me the prosecutions then? If a crime has bene committed, then it should be prosecuted. Is it the fault of the law that it wasn't pursued? I doubt it.

"For my town to reach it's 40b goals through 40b alone, we'd have to double the amount of housing in the town overall" - that's an absurd statement. 40b requires 10% of the houses in an area to be affordable. Show me the math where you have to 'double the amount of housing in the town' to make that possible.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

If you are confusing an initiative petition to repeal a state law with mindless and rampant discussion destruction - perhaps you are not paying sufficient attention.

Nonetheless, let me answer you.

You presume that Mosaic Commons is an unalloyed good. Let us pretend so: in which case, how do you know that 40B is the ONLY mechanism that would have permitted it? Can you list at least one reason why violation of local zoning might be a bad thing?

Rife with fraud, means just that. Have you read the IG report? (I skimmed it.) It wouldn't be at all hard to look and see how many towns have had to sue developers in order to gain the money owed them: there are many such cases. You may be confusing criminal with civil prosecution - I'm talking only civil here.

Show me that math? OK. I'll put that in a second reply. It's from a note posted to the Arlington town public list, by two friends of mine. Both of them are people I met in the SCA some 25 years ago. The husband was the best man at my first wedding, and has a Ph.D. in mathematics. (All of this by way of saying: I vouch for their honesty, and Harvard vouches for his math skills).

[shayde.livejournal.com]

how do you know that 40B is the ONLY mechanism that would have permitted it? Can you list at least one reason why violation of local zoning might be a bad thing?

That seems like two questions that are at odds, perhaps I'm misreading.

In order for MC to be built in an efficient (monetarily and energy wise), and sane fashion (when referring to sane and sustainable land use), MC required clustered housing. The local zoning laws for our town specifically stated an outdated model for residential zoning, IE requiring a specific seperation between houses and driveway entrances. In order for MC to be built, there would have to have been a variance issued by town meeting. Time and time again, NIMBY raises its head. Even though town boards, planning boards, and land conservancy boards in towns recommend our type of development, town voters consistently vote it down, because All Development is Bad.

I have skimmed the IG report as you have. I'm surprised at the 'towns have had to sue developers in order to gain the money owed to them' - what money are you talking about? A developer pays no money to the town in a 40b situation other than application fees for building permits. 40b is a process for granting comprehensive permits for affordable housing. It is not a government subsidy arrangement in any direction.

I eagerly await the math.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

The questions are closely related.

Zoning laws are local, and democratic. They represent an expressed wish of the voters, through their elected representatives. I think that overriding democratic choices is, in general, a bad thing: unless there is a clear violation of constitutional rights and such.

40B allows direct zoning override, in exchange for insufficient or minuscule improvements of affordable housing.

Mosaic Commons was an "I want to do this", but the expressed democratic will of the town was "we don't want it". When should individual's rights trump the democratically expressed will of the residents? The fact that YOU want it, does not make it necessarily better, nor does that fact that it might be better in terms of energy usage make it better enough overall.

If you are not aware that developers of 40B projects have to return "excess profits" to towns under the law, and that the IG report points out they rarely do: you don't know 40B.

[shayde.livejournal.com]

You're making an fallacious argument that is, unfortunately, prevalent in the current economic and political climate.

"The will of the masses is always right."

When logical, detailed arguments are made that a planned change or plan is intelligently thought out, good for the town, good for the community, and good for the future, it is unfortunately rare that the community, when asked to vote on said change, will vote in favor of it. This is the flaw in a Direct Democracy - that 'mob rule' is always right, despite the needs of the society as a whole.

I understand that my stating this viewpoint goes at odds with your personal positions. But the constitution was set up with a representational governmental structure, where elected officials were put in place to make informed, detailed decisions on issues that arise. That I fully support. But the current trend toward "We don't trust our elected officials, lets rule by referendum" was in fact opposed by the authors of the constitution:

"A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party. Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths" - James Madison

In the case of Mosaic, the expressed democratic will of the elected town officials and the boards set up to analyze our project was positive. It was portrayed as good for the town, good for the community, good for the tax rolls, just good in general. However, had we gone to town vote, history has shown, we would likely have been denied our variance. (It did NOT go to town vote due to 40b).

The arguments for developing something like MC are vast, not only from an energy conservation standpoint, but also in the realm of sane development practices and land use. In short, had we not built SawyerHill, the land would have been developed via a traditional manner, likely with mcmansions, acres of driveways, and cleared land - an anachronistic holdover from early agrarian designs ("Got a house? Gotta have LAND!"). Yes we wanted it - anyone wants their dream home. We just wanted to do it a certain way, and because of 50+ year old zoning laws, we couldn't. We had no choice but to use 40b as a path to success.

(For the record, I can state without equivocation, there were no excess profits from our project to be paid to the town :)

I'm honestly willing to let this lie with "we agree to disagree" but I wanted to state our position - we're not evil, we're not forcing our will on those who oppose us just because it will make us rich or feel good. We're doing what we believe to be right, not only for us, but for society in general. We're frustrated that every study, every model, every analysis done regarding communities such as ours says that we're doing the right thing - economically, ecologically, and sustainably - and still we get opposition for no logical reason. Why are we being punished for doing the right thing? We are forcing no one to live with us. We're simply asking that we be allowed to build our homes.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

::Dan, one last answer::

You attribute to me the thought: "The will of the masses is always right."

And yet, that is not what I said, and in fact I specifically mentioned at least one glaring exception to that. I'm don't care to speculate as to why you are incorrectly attributing what I said.

Let's pretend, just for a second, every one of your points: that Mosaic Commons is an unalloyed good, that it would have been voted down (although you are speculating), and that 40B was the only reason it was built.

Nothing in my general position about affordable housing and the value of 40B in general is obviated by this particular stipulated counter-example. What you have demonstrated is that Mosaic Commons was so important to those that wished to build it, that collectively it chose to add affordable housing to the project in order to get it built.

This makes Mosaic Commons exactly the same as a developer, except for the general sense that developers have a more overt motive of money. It is my understanding that Mosaic Commons was not primarily built as a tool for improving affordable housing, but rather affordable housing was a loophole that was exploited.

How did Mosaic Commons improve affordable housing in Berlin? Did it, at all? If so, how much? Did it provide as much or more benefit than Section 8 housing or other programs?

You aren't defending 40B, and you aren't accurately portraying my arguments against 40B. At best, you are merely defending Mosaic Commons, which exploited 40B for its own ends - whether those ends were good or not, those ends had (I would guess) little or nothing to do with affordable housing.

Out of curiosity: what are the price differences between 40B homes and regular homes in Mosaic Commons? Would a person who qualifies for a 40B unit also qualify for a regular unit? (I mean: compare the income required for qualification for both.) I see that many of the 40B units in Mosaic have been on sale for more than the minimum 120 days: is the group considering converting them to market rate (as is allowed in the law)? If not: why not? Is it because the market rate homes are also not selling?

I appreciate the fondness for Mosaic and Camelot: I've a lot of friends who live there. But you have not shown me, through your defense of Mosaic, that 40B is still an overall good for the State of MA, for the residents, for those that are too poor to afford market housing, for those that are too poor to afford even 40B housing, not have you overcome the flaws noted in the Inspector Generals report.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

From that note:

Arlington has 19,500 housing units, of which 5.2% are currently considered affordable. In order to reach the magic 10% affordability, Arlington would need to be able to somehow, actually, achieve one of the following scenarios:

a) convert 936 units from market-rate to affordable units (while adding 0 market-rate units); or

b) add 1,040 affordable units (while adding 0 market-rate units); or

c) under 40b (25%), add 6,240 total units in order to garner 560 affordable units (to put that into perspective, it would mean adding 46 projects like the Mirak Legacy 134-unit development in Arlington Center). Also, 40b units are not necessarily in perpetuity, so on an ongoing basis, affordable units will be subtracted and moved into the market-rate column); or

d) under Arlington's inclusionary zoning (15%), add 18,720 total units in order to garner 2,808 affordable units.

Ask yourself how likely any of these options are, where all of these units would fit, and how long it would take. Let alone how it would affect school budgets, etc. Not one of these options strikes me as either feasible or intelligent.

These figures are from 2006. I believe the figures for today are even more absurd, because - and this is how you know that the 40b law has always been fundamentally flawed for towns like Arlington - each 40b project that has been built in Arlington since then has moved Arlington FARTHER from the 10% requirement. Submitting to the 10% clause of 40b is indeed a losing proposition and reminds me strongly of Sisyphus.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

I see I mis-remembered. 40B would require increasing the housing stock in Arlington by one third, not double. Still impossible. And would only work if no ordinary housing was built beyond those 40B developments.

The "double" was to use inclusionary zoning - which is what 40B is supposed to spur as an alternative. So, while I was mistaken, the mistake does not obviate my point.

41 years of absolute failure.

Were you aware that the state revised the definitions of affordable housing only a few years ago, to make them more liberal? And that, as yet, most towns in MA still aren't affordable? And that given municipal land crowding, very few can achieve affordability to the 10% level via 40B or inclusionary zoning?

[shayde.livejournal.com]

This, as you say, is the case ONLY if 40b is the only mechanism for making units affordable. 40b was put in place as a last resort for towns that have outpriced low income households, as a way to get affordable units into a community, because the town has failed to do so.

If Arlington granted a permit to 2-3 projects that have enough affordable units, then no 40b projects could come in.

But that won't happen. So 40b succeeds in pushing the issue.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

2-3 projects?

Where? When? How, and with what money? Whose money?

Bluntly put: it just could not happen. Period. Not won't, not shouldn't: it just cannot happen.

And why should so much money and effort be spent to provide housing for a very small subset of people that cannot afford housing? Why should it be spent on housing they OWN, instead of housing they rent? Why should it be spent on housing that may (or may not) remain affordable into the future?

"So 40B succeeds in pushing the issue"

By what metric of success? Affordability in MA has scarcely improved in the 41 years of 40B, and remarkably little of that can be laid at the feet of 40B.

By what metric is 40B a success?

[noeltheone.livejournal.com]

By what metric is 40B a success?

http://www.protectaffordablehousing.org/cms/home/get-the-facts/accomplishments

I'm not by any means saying the law is perfect, but the move to repeal it has sidetracked amendments to the law that were working their way through the legislature.

Which is of course what was desired.

The main proponents of this repeal aren't interested in solving the underlying problem. They just want 40B to go away. If they were interested in solutions, they would suggest amendments or propose something to replace it.

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

The question is mooted, but it's worth pointing out that (if you have the knowledge), that web page is badly distorting the facts, or quoting them highly selectively.

Nor is it the case that amendments to the law were side-tracked. Thanks to Prop 2.5, the law cannot be modified, without the state also providing funding: the state can no longer produce or modify laws with unfunded mandates.

Having gotten to know THE MAIN proponent of the law (online), I'm sure that you are utterly and completely mistaken about his desire or his intention.

You speak with surety: but lack the facts. That's not really a good basis for advocating a position.

[galaneia.livejournal.com]

That was my thought. It's flawed, but I don't want to get rid of it without some alternative in place.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I have been really irritated with the baby-with-the-bathwater argument that the best way to get 40B reformed is to throw the whole thing out and then cross our fingers that someone replaces it with something better. I have a gut feeling that if 40B is thrown out, it just won't be replaced at all.

I am deeply distressed on a personal level to have learned how many of my friends are so in favor of eliminating the program that's the only thing allowing me to buy a home. To the point I don't see many of them quite the same way anymore - especially since all of them are coming from pretty privileged places. It's easy to say we should toss out something that gets less wealthy people into home ownership, when you have already achieved that goal and weren't really at risk of not being able to achieve it.