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

[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.