The Affordable Homes Act

by Steve Revilak

On Tuesday August 6, 2024, Governor Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act (H.4977) into law. It’s a significant piece of legislation that will take positive strides toward addressing our state’s housing crisis. At 181 pages, the Affordable Homes Act is a lengthy bill, but the things it does generally fall into three categories: funding, changes to state law, and changes to state agencies.

The act authorizes more than five billion dollars to fund the creation, maintenance, and preservation of housing. This includes $425M to housing authorities and local housing initiatives (including $2.5M for the Arlington Housing Authority), $60M to assist homeowners or tenants with a household member with blindness or severe disabilities, $70M for community-based efforts to develop supportive housing for persons with disabilities, and $100M to expand opportunities for first-time homebuyers.

The Affordable Homes Act makes several changes to Massachusetts zoning laws, including the legalization of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) statewide. ADUs, also known as “granny flats” or “in-law apartments,” are a cost-effective way to add new housing, and they’re typically used to provide living quarters for relatives or caretakers, or to generate rental income for homeowners. ADUs are now allowed in all single-family zones in Massachusetts, by right, without the need for a discretionary permit. Arlington has been a leader in this area, having passed an ADU bylaw in 2021, and it’s great to see this option extended throughout the Commonwealth.

Finally, the Affordable Homes Act makes a number of changes to state agencies, especially the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC). The Act establishes a new Office of Fair Housing within the EOHLC, to “advance the elimination of housing discrimination.” The Fair Housing office will provide periodic reports on progress towards achieving this goal. EOHLC is also charged with creating and implementing a state-wide housing plan that will consider supply and demand, affordability, challenges unique to different regions of the state, and an analysis of local zoning laws.

While our legislators deserve kudos for putting this package together, they also deserve kudos for what they left out. More than three hundred amendments were filed during House deliberations, and a number of them were intended to weaken the multi-family housing requirements of the MBTA Communities Act. For example, one amendment, simply titled “Technical Correction” would have rewritten the transit community definitions, in order to reduce the housing requirements for Milton. We are heartened that our legislators did not go along with such shenanigans.

Housing

Housing Production Plan Outreach Efforts

Arlington is in the process of update the town’s 2016 Housing Production Plan, and the Housing Plan Implementation Committee and Planning Department have put together a “meeting in a box” as part of their outreach efforts. The idea is to package a set of discussion questions and supplementary materials, so that groups can talk through the questions on their own and provide written feedback. Meeting in a box materials are available from the town website.

I tried this with a group of friends. Here are the questions, and points that came up during the group discussion. Notes that these are discussion notes (transcribed from large sheets of easel paper), and don’t represent agreement or concensus.

Question 1: Housing Needs. Arlington residents have expressed concerns about the housing needs of older adults. Other needs identified so far are the cost and condition of rental housing, the impact of Arlington’s housing sale prices on the ability of young families to find a home in Arlington they can afford, and the impact of limited housing choices on racial and ethnic diversity in Arlington. What housing needs are you most concerned about?

Address historical racial injustice and land use policies.
Diversity and types of housing. Availability and affordability.
Lack of diversity of housing types.
Every house sold is a total bidding war.
Better “stage of life housing” matches.
Having an adequate range of options for lots of different needs.
Impact on the regional housing shortage.
Arlington is served by the T and buses; we have a responsibility to provide housing because we have access to transit.
I was lucky to get in a few years ago, before prices started going crazy.
We spend too much time romanticizing our old crumbling houses with lead paint.
Arlington’s zoning encourages mansionization. As a result, we get one big expensive house rather than two smaller more affordable ones.
What’s happening in Arlington today is the same thing that happened to Lexington 20 years ago — it became a community for affluent professionals only
There’s too much emphasis on keeping things the way they were 20, 30, 40, or 50 years ago.
Housing can be about preserving economic diversity, but we need a variety of housing types to do that.
I’d be happy to see more people in town.
Getting an affordable rental unit here is like winning the lottery.
The suburbs have shut down housing production. That’s one of the things causing gentrification in Boston.
Arlington’s housing mainly caters towards families with children. For our town’s financial health, we also need housing for families without children.
With climate change, our practice of low-density, car-oriented, land-intensive sprawl is no longer sustainable. Density can be an important tool for addressing climate change, and we should use it to that effect.

Question 2: Challenges to Meeting Affordable Housing Needs. Participants in interviews conducted for the Housing Plan and at the June 9 Housing Plan Meeting were asked about challenges or obstacles to providing affordable housing in Arlington. Several challenges were identified, such as difficulty finding locations that for new housing development or redevelopment, how the Town’s Housing Trust Fund and CPA funds should be used to meet housing needs, and general tensions and disagreement about growth in Arlington that make it hard for people to agree. What challenges do you think are the biggest impediments to meeting housing needs in Arlington?

There’s not a stable funding source for Arlington’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Housing is really expensive here.
There are not enough affordable housing developers that are willing to navigate Arlington’s anti-development stance. They’ll build in other communities, where there’s less resistance.
There’s a lack of political will to add affordable housing, or housing in general.
There’s not enough land where multifamily housing can be built.
There’s unreasonable resistance to new multi-family buildings, like apartments.
The housing production plan identifies a number of opportunity zones. But they’re small, and there’s not enough land to create much of an opportunity.
Our housing authority is not very aggressive about utilizing the land they have. Their leadership doesn’t seem to want to do it.
The belief that “Arlington is full”. In reality, we’ve just chosen to be (by virtue of current zoning).

Question 3: Opportunities for Reaching Agreement. What steps would help to bring Arlington residents together about providing affordable housing? How can the Town balance concerns about housing needs and natural resources protection? Or concerns about housing need and preserving Arlington’s built environment? What do you think most could people agree on?

Concern about exurban sprawl.
Concern about gentrification.
Our parking requirements make housing more expensive than it needs to be.
We can agree on worries. I’m skeptical that we’ll be able to agree on solutions.
There’s an unwillingness to accept incremental progress.
Many incremental changes feel too big.
If people feel threatened by affordable housing, they’ll oppose it.
Shared values around the importance of having residents of a variety of economic situations.
Do people really care about environmental sustainability when they move into a house? Not sure how you get people to sign on.
There’s a conflict between anti-density and sustainability.
If you don’t build here, there will be evergreen builds outside of 495.
Teachers who teach here should be able to afford to live here.
We need business growth and tax base growth.
New housing should feel like it blends into the surrounding neighborhood.
Our neighborhoods are changing. The fact that we’re not doing proactive things doesn’t prevent them from changing.

As you can see, our group had a range of opinions and even a few points of disagreement – for example, “there’s an unwillingness to accept incremental progress” vs “many incremental changes feel too big”. I feel like that pair is a good illustration of how different people have different comfort zones; a situation that can be challenging to navigate. Metro Boston is growing, as are metropolitan areas all across the country. Our new arrivals will need places to live, and I’d hope to see Arlington be proactive in addressing that need.

housing production Housing Production Plan Outreach

Written by Steve Revilak August 22, 2021

Why You Should Apply for Arlington Civic Academy

by JP Lewicke

When you love the place you live and you want to help it become even better, how can you make a difference? Arlington is an extremely civically active community, with hundreds of residents involved in Town Meeting, several dozen boards and committees, and numerous other groups that play an important role in improving our town. The vast array of options can be a bit dizzying for a newcomer to sort through.

Fortunately, Arlington has recently launched Arlington Civic Academy to provide interested residents with a pathway to becoming more civically literate and involved. Ably organized by Joan Roman, Arlington’s Public Information Officer, Civic Academy takes place over the course of six weeks and aims to provide participants with the information they need for constructive civic engagement. Applications are open from now until August 4th for the fall session, which will take place between September 12th and October 17th.

Find Out How the Town Works

It’s clear that town government takes the Academy seriously. The Town Manager, Select Board Chair, Town Moderator, and the heads of several town departments have stayed late into the evening to attend Civic Academy sessions. Their formal presentations do a great job of explaining how different areas of town government work and how best to get involved, but the chance to meet them and ask them questions is equally valuable. The participants usually have a lot of very insightful questions, and it’s a great opportunity to learn more and become a more effective advocate in the future.

Participants Make Arlington Civic Academy Great

The other participants are another great part of the program. It’s also a great chance to make connections with other people who are equally enthusiastic about learning and getting involved in making their town a better place. There have been two sessions of the program so far, and several participants have gone on to run for Town Meeting, join the Master Plan Update Advisory Committee, volunteer for last fall’s tax override campaign, and propose warrant articles. We just had a get-together for members of both Civic Academy sessions to meet each other and network, and are hopeful that Civic Academy alumni can help connect future participants in the program to opportunities to get involved in helping Arlington become even better.

Helping Others Learn to Navigate Town Processes

I ran for Town Meeting this spring after attending Civic Academy last fall, and I found that it served me well after I was elected. It taught me how the budgeting process worked, including all the steps from the Town Manager’s office working with individual departments, the Finance Committee compiling a cohesive budget, and Town Meeting approving that budget. When constituents from my precinct have questions about how to get help with something from the town, I know which boards or committees or town departments they should reach out to. I also have a better understanding of the current constraints and opportunities faced by our town across multiple areas.

When I started working with Paul Schlictman on advocating for extending the Red Line further into Arlington, I reached out to the members of my Civic Academy class to see if they were also interested, and several of them were incredibly generous with their time and helped us set up our website and mailing list. I would highly recommend applying to Civic Academy, and I’m very thankful that the town puts so much effort into making it a great experience.

Arlington Civic Academy

Written by Guest Writer July 21, 2024

Why Should Arlington Have an Affordable Housing Trust Fund?

Text of Warrant Article 8: (To be considered at Special Town Meeting (Virtual), Mon. 11/16/20 at 8:00 p.m.)

“ARTICLE 8 ACCEPTANCE OF LEGISLATION/BYLAW AMENDMENT/ MUNICIPAL AFFORDABLE HOUSING TRUST FUND

To see if the Town will vote to accept Massachusetts General Laws c. 44 § 55C, to authorize the creation of a Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund to support the development of affordable housing in Arlington, establish a new bylaw for the administration of same; or take any action related thereto. (Inserted by the Select Board)”

What will it do? How will it work?

A Proactive Step to Address Housing Affordability. With a municipal affordable housing trust, Arlington will join more than 113 Massachusetts municipalities that have formed a housing trust fund to support a proactive strategy for building housing affordability. The Trust is a small step the Town can take to more proactively address the housing affordability crisis that challenges many of our current residents and makes Arlington increasingly inaccessible to new residents. Creating affordable housing can also be a strategy for maintaining or increasing diversity.

Ability to Act Quickly.
A primary benefit of a housing trust is to enable the Town to act quickly to support or participate in transactions that increase or preserve affordable housing in Arlington. Without a Trust, the Town does not have the flexibility or agility to act quickly. Following are some examples, though there are many other ways that trusts can and do advance housing affordability:
• Financing the acquisition and/or development of market properties for conversion to affordable housing by a nonprofit developer;
• Purchasing an existing affordable home to ensure resale to another low income buyer, or purchasing a market rate home to create an affordable homeownership opportunity;
• Providing flexible financing to increase the number of affordable units or reduce income levels in existing or new projects that include affordable housing.

Developing a Housing Trust Strategy Over Time.

The strategies to be pursued by the Trust would be set forth by the Trustees in a plan or proposal(s) they would lay out after they are appointed, most likely after/through a process of public engagement. The specific strategies are, deliberately, not part of the warrant article or the Bylaw proposed for adoption. This allows the Town the flexibility to set and modify the Town’s housing strategies over time, in a manner that is responsive to the public and its elected representatives. The Bylaw requires the strategy or plan, and most major Trust decisions, to be approved by the Select Board, and Town investments in the Trust would still require Town Meeting approval.

Funding the Affordable Housing Trust Fund.

Creating affordable housing requires substantial subsidy. The Trust’s ability to cause more affordable housing to be created or preserved in Arlington will be directly related to the availability of resources to fund it and leverage additional state and federal resources. The vote before the Special Town Meeting this fall will not provide any funding for the Trust.

While it is anticipated that the Trust might receive initial funding via a grant of Community Preservation Act funds from the CPA Committee, to increase our impact, more resources will be needed.

How Other Communities Fund Their Housing Trust Funds.

The Community Preservation Act is the most common source of funding, but the most impactful trusts tend to have a variety of funding sources that result in a steady flow of financial resources into the Trust. Other municipalities have tapped into a variety of additional sources, including inclusionary zoning payments, federal HOME funds, voluntary/negotiated developer payments, proceeds from sale of tax foreclosed or other Town-owned properties, cell tower payments, cannabis-related revenue, short-term rental fees, fees for managing housing lotteries, sale of bonds, general municipal funding, and private donations. Many also donate excess town property to their housing trust for sale and redevelopment as affordable or mixed income housing. More recently, a number of cities and towns have proposed home rule petitions that would allow them to impose a small fee on the transfer of real property to fund their housing trusts, and there is state legislation proposed to authorize cities and towns to impose such transfer fees without sending a Home Rule Petition to the state legislature.

Building Trust Resources Through a Transfer Fee.

The Housing Plan Implementation Committee originally recommended that Town Meeting adopt a bylaw creating a housing trust and create a funding source for it by voting to authorize the filing of a home rule petition to impose a modest real estate transfer fee. Although the Select Board elected to defer consideration of the transfer fee until 2021, such a fee is attractive to many, because it would be borne only by those selling their Arlington homes or properties, and because it provides a mechanism to capture a very small portion of the extraordinary equity increase that Arlington property owners have realized over many years due to regional market forces. The details of such a fee are important and merit further discussion, but it presents a promising potential revenue source to empower the Trust to be proactive.

The Process.

The article in front of the Special Town Meeting would start the process of creating a municipal affordable housing trust. Once approved by Town Meeting the Affordable Housing Trust Bylaw would be submitted to the Attorney General to certify its consistency with the state law governing housing trusts within 90 days. Once so certified, the Town Manager will appoint trustees, including at least one member of the Select Board. Once these appointments are confirmed by the Select Board, the Trustees themselves would lead the process of proposing an initial set of goals and strategies for the Trust to implement, after approval by the Select Board.

Financial Stability & Accountability.

The Trust will be governed by the MAHT law passed in 2005 that specifies powers and limitations for trusts of this type. The proposed Bylaw has been reviewed and modified pursuant to suggestions of the Finance Committee to ensure accountability and financial stability. The Trust will be managed by the Treasurer, will be audited annually, will have legal and practical limitations on its borrowing capacity, and will not have the power to pledge the full faith and credit of the Town.

To learn more about municipal affordable housing trusts, refer to the MHP Municipal Affordable Housing Trust Fund Guide, v.3

******

This information was prepared by Karen Kelleher, Arlington Town Meeting Member, Precinct 5, Member, Arlington Housing Planning Implementation Committee and Executive Director, LISC Boston ( Local Initiative Support Corporation)

2020 TM Affordable housing Arlington Affordable Housing Article 8 Karen Kelleher MAHT town meeting Trust Fund Warrant article

Written by Barbara Thornton November 9, 2020

Two Different Housing Crises

Written by Barbara Thornton December 2, 2019

Reinhardt on Sustainable Housing Ideas

Written by Barbara Thornton December 5, 2019

Book Shows Municipal Contribution to Segregation

According to Richard Rothstein in his 2017 book, Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, “we have created a caste system in this country, with African-Americans kept exploited and geographically separate by racially explicit government policies,” he writes. “Although most of these policies are now off the books, they have never been remedied and their effects endure.” Zoning was one of the policies that contributed significantly to this outcome.

Here are some highlights, selected for Arlington readers, from this book:

P. VII
“… until the last quarter of the twentieth century, racially explicit policies of federal, state and local governments defined where white and African Americans should live. Today’s racial segregation in the North, South, Midwest, and West is not the the unintended consequence of individual choices and of otherwise well-meaning law and regulation but of unhidden public policy that explicitly segregated every metropolitan area in the United States. The policy was so systematic and forceful that is effects endure to the present time. Without our government’s purposeful imposition of racial segregation, the other causes – private prejudice, white flight, real estate starring, bank redlining, income differences, and self-segregation – still would have existed but with far less opportunity for expression. Segregation by intentional government action is not de facto. Rather, it is what courts call de jure: segregation by law and public policy. “

1917 – Buchanan v. Warley – Supreme Court case that overturned racial zoning ordinance in Louisville, Kentucky. Municipalities ignore and fought against this. Kansas City and Norfolk through 1987.

Post WWII GI Bill – African Americans largely excluded from education and mortgage benefits
Federal Housing Administration won’t insure mortgages to African Americans or mortgages in integrated neighborhoods. African Americans limited to non-amortizing loans, which means they build no equity in their homes while making payments
Federal, stage and local governments are used to enforce race-restrictive covenants in deeds.

1948 – Shelley v. Kraemer – Although racially restrictive real estate covenants are not per se illegal, since they do not involve state action, a court cannot enforce them under the Fourteenth Amendment. FHA continues to not insure mortgages for African Americans.

1968 – Fair Housing Act endorsed the rights of African Americans to to reside wherever they chose and could afford. Finally ending the Federal Housing Administration’s’ role in mortgage insurance discrimination.
1969 – Mass 40B law passed
1972 – Head of Arlington ARB editorial talking about preserving the suburban way of life
1973 – Town Meeting passes moratorium on apartment construction
1975 – Arlington zoning re-do that all but stops development
1977 – Supreme Court upholds Arlington Heights, IL zoning that prohibited multi-unit development anywhere by adjacent to an outlying commercial area. In meetings leading to the adoption of these rules, the public urged support for racially discriminatory reasons.

p. 179″Residential segregation is hard to undo for several reasons:

Parents’ economic status is commonly replicated in the net generation, so once government prevented African Americans from fully participating in the mid-twentieth-century free labor market, depressed incomes became, for many, a multi-generational trait
The value of white working and middle-class families’ suburban housing appreciated substantially over the years, resulting in a vast wealth difference between whites and blacks that helped to define permanently our racial living arrangements. Because parents can bequeath assets to their children, the racial wealth gap is even more persistent down through the generations than income differences.
Once segregation was established, seemingly race-neutral policies reinforced it to make remedies even more difficult. Perhaps most pernicious has been the federal tax code’s mortgage interest rate deduction, which increased the subsidies to higher-income suburban homeowners while providing no corresponding tax benefit for renters. Because de jure policies of segregation ensured that whites would be more likely to be owners and African Americans would more likely be renters, the tax code contributes to making African Americans and whites less equal, despite the code’s purportedly nonracial provisions.

Color of Law Richard Rothstein Segregation and Zoning

Written by Guest Writer September 8, 2019

What is a Master Plan?

Article 1 in a series on the Arlington, MA master planning process. Prepared by Barbara Thornton

Arlington, located about 15 miles north west of Boston, is now developing a master plan that will reflect the visions and expectations of the community and will provide enabling steps for the community to move toward this vision over the next decade or two. Initial studies have been done, public meetings have been held. The Town will begin in January 2015 to pull together the vision for its future as written in a new Master Plan.

In developing a new master plan, the Town of Arlington follows in the footsteps laid down thousands of years ago when Greeks, Romans and other civilizations determined the best layout for a city before they started to build. In more recent times, William Penn laid out his utopian view of Philadelphia with a gridiron street pattern and public squares in 1682. Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant developed the hub and spoke street plan for Washington DC in 1798. City planning started with new cities, relatively empty land and a “master builder” typically an architect, engineer or landscape architect commissioned by the land holders to develop a visionary design.

In the 1900’s era of Progressive government in America, citizens sought ways to reach a consensus on how their existing cities should evolve. State and federal laws passed to help guide this process, seeing land use decisions as more than just a private landowner’s right but rather a process that involved improving the health and wellbeing of the entire community. While the focus on master planning was and still is primarily physical, 21st century master planners are typically convened by the local municipality, work with the help of trained planners and architects and rely heavily on the knowledge and participation of their citizenry to reflect a future vision of the health and wellbeing of the community. This vision is crafted into a Master Plan. In Arlington the process is guided by Carol Kowalski, Director of Planning and Community Development, with professional support from RKG Associates, a company of planners and architects and with the vision of the Master Planning advisory committee, co-chaired by Carol Svenson and Charles Kalauskas, Arlington residents, and by the citizens who share their concerns and hopes with the process as it evolves. This happens through public meetings, letters, email, and surveys. The most recent survey asks residents to respond on transportation modes and commuting patterns

We all do planning. Starting a family, a business or a career, we lay out our goals and assume the steps necessary to accomplish these goals and we periodically revise them as necessary. The same thing is true for cities. Based on changes in population, economic development, etc. cities, from time to time, need to revise their plans. In Massachusetts the enabling acts for planning and zoning are here http://www.mass.gov/hed/community/planning/zoning-resources.html. The specific law for Massachusetts is MGL Ch. 41 sect. 81D. This plan, whether called a city plan, master plan, general plan, comprehensive plan or development plan, has some constant characteristics independent of the specific municipality: focus on the built environment, long range view (10-20 years), covers the entire municipality, reflects the municipality’s vision of its future, and how this future is to be achieved. Typically it is broken out into a number of chapters or “elements” reflecting the situation as it is, the data showing the potential opportunities and concerns and recommendations for how to maximize the desired opportunities and minimize the concerns for each element.

The upcoming articles in this series will focus on each individual element in the Town of Arlington’s Master Plan.

Written by Steve Revilak April 7, 2019