The City Council voted unanimously to send a communication to the Zoning Board of Appeals stating its full support of a memo circulated by Assistant Director of Community Development Stacey Bernson urging the ZBA to ensure all 40B developments before it will have affordable units set aside in perpetuity.
At the council’s request, Bernson appeared before the Industrial and Community Development Committee to discuss the Chapter 40B law, which allows developers to circumvent local zoning regulations for projects with 20 to 25% of the units designated as affordable in communities that have an affordable housing stock below 10%. Bernson provided councilors with a list of the pending 40Bs that had not yet begun construction and the number of affordable units in each. In total, the city has 567 units set to come online across the seven projects that have yet to pull a comprehensive building permit.
But, the key issue spotlighted by councilors was the fact that the affordability restrictions for many of the developments expire and could leave the city again vulnerable to a spate of projects through 40B. Of those seven developments, three will see the affordability restrictions expire in 30 years, while another will have the restriction expire in 40. The remaining developments have the restriction set in place in perpetuity.
Councilors, during the committee meeting, were largely critical of the ZBA for permitting developers to establish expirations of affordability restrictions.
“We have to get on the same page,” Councilor-at-Large Jon Turco said. “They should all be perpetuity.”
Councilor-at-Large Anne Manning Martin said she watched the ZBA, during a hearing for a 40B project, “cave to the tantrum” thrown by an attorney representing the developer. The attorney, she said, told board members that implementing affordability restrictions in perpetuity was not financially viable for the developer.
Ward 5 Councilor Dave Gamache said the board should reject permits if the affordability restrictions are not left in place in perpetuity. But, there is little a local board can do to wholesale reject a 40B application if the community is below the 10% threshold.
“We shouldn’t have to beg them for it,” Gamache said. “We should have the mayor tell them, perpetuity or nothing.”
