Romney to Study Affordable Housing Law

Chapter 40B, as the law is known, was first put in place in 1969 to encourage cities and towns to build more affordable housing. Under the law, if a community has less than 10% of its permanent housing stock affordable, certain local zoning regulations can be overridden if 25% of a proposed development includes affordable units. Currently, only 31 of the state's 351 cities and towns meet the 10% threshold. Romney says while the 33-year-old law has created more than 30,000 affordable homes in the state, it needs a comprehensive review, noting that Massachusetts still has some of the highest cost housing of any state in the nation.

At issue is the contention by many cities and towns that developers take advantage of the law to get their projects passed while housing advocates insist that the law is necessary to increase the development of affordable housing in suburban areas across the state. Recently the state Department of Housing and Community Development made some regulatory changes to the law by expanding the definition of affordable housing to enable more cities and town to reach the required 10% but opponents of the law's current configuration insist that that was not enough.

The task force will be chaired by Housing and Community Development director Jane Gumble and will comprise legislators and state housing and municipal officials as well as other stakeholders, including those representing development and environmental concerns.

The panel's assignment by Romney is to review the effectiveness of Chapter 40B in increasing the state's housing supply for people who earn 80% or less of the area median income. Romney also asked the task force to identify the impact of 40B projects on the state's cities and towns, determining the public benefits of those developments. The task force will also develop improvements to the law itself.

The governor's office says that other issues under consideration by the task force may include a fresh examination of the criteria for site approval for 40B developments as well as local and state handling of the approval, review and permitting process. Rewards for communities that increase their housing supply may also be considered.