The bill was passed in the House and Senate but in different versions and it is back in conference committee. A representative of the House's Housing and Urban Development committee tells GlobeSt.com that the hope is the bill will pass before the legislature adjourns.
That means a compromise has to be reached. Chapter 40B was passed in the early 1970s to encourage the development of affordable housing across the state. The law states that if a community does not have at least 10% affordable housing and a developer wants to build a residential project with at least 25% affordable housing, the developer can sidestep local zoning laws to get the development approved.
Local towns contend that developers take advantage of the law to get projects built and they want the definition of affordable housing to be expanded so that more towns can meet the requirement. But others insist that the bulk of the state's affordable housing is concentrated in heavily urban areas and that suburban areas should be shouldering more of the burden.
The differences lie in the definition of affordable housing. The House wants to see the parameters of affordable housing expanded to include accessory apartments "constructed on or after July 1, 2002 pursuant to a community's local zoning by-law that is affordable to the occupant." The Senate bill wants an accessory apartment included only if it is occupied by a person whose income does not exceed 80% of the area median and who spends no more than 40% of income on rent, and the unit remain should remain affordable for a minimum of 15 years. The House wants manufactured housing units to be included in the affordable housing count while the Senate wants them to be counted towards only 5% of a town's affordable housing stock.
The House wants housing units subsidized through Section 8 voucher subsidies included in the definition. The Senate does not. The House wants affordable housing that is developed to have a use restriction of at least 40 years while the Senate bill wants towns to be able to require that the units remain affordable in perpetuity.
The Senate also wants to see financial rewards to communities that develop affordable housing while the House bill has no such provision.
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