By Angeljean Chiaramida
Staff writer
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NEWBURYPORT — A ballot question that asks whether the state's 40-year-old affordable housing law should be repealed drew strong, opposing opinions last night from a panel of local leaders and housing advocates at Newburyport Public Library.
Question 2 on the November ballot asks whether voters believe the Chapter 40B law should be repealed. Advocates for a Yes vote believe the law needs to be tossed out completely to force the state Legislature to write one that is fairer to communities and also produces housing that low-income people can really afford. Those against the question say the complicated law is in need of reform but not annihilation.
Sponsored by the YWCA of Greater Newburyport and moderated by Daily News editor John Macone, the forum was intended to educate local voters on the complexities of the issues surrounding the law, known as Chapter 40B, which allows developers a fast-track through permitting processes in communities with less than 10 percent of housing deemed affordable by a state formula.
Affordable housing is a mission of YWCA, said YWCA Executive Director John Feehan, especially as it affects women, who make up the largest percentage of those desperate for the short supply of reasonably priced housing.
Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the law's major supporter, the Citizens Housing and Planning Association, believes the law as it exists must be preserved at all costs, saying that in its 40-year existence, the law has produced tens of thousands of affordable housing units for the state's moderate-income working families. Without it, he believes, the housing supply for those families would be lost.
Georgetown resident and former Zoning Board of Appeals member Frank Puopolo feels it's time to find a new way.
"In recent years 40B has been a vehicle for profit-driven entities (developers) to exact huge profits to benefit no one but themselves," Puopolo said. "Believe me, if this is repealed, there will be a mad rush to the Statehouse to pass another affordable housing law."
Both Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer and Salisbury Town Manager Neil Harrington recommend killing 40B and starting over, saying that all recent attempts of reforming the law have fallen on deaf ears at the Statehouse because it is such a contentious issue.
In Salisbury and Amesbury, the law has forced large housing developments on small lots of land, with the impact of increased demands on town services borne solely by the communities, they said.
When they try to regulate the developments or complained, they said state regulators who oversee 40B projects use a heavy hand and side with developers, leaving cities and town to deal with the results.
In Salisbury, Harrington said, the affordable housing produced by 40B developers isn't affordable to the residents who need it most.
"I'm in favor of affordable housing, but I'm opposed to 40B," Harrington said. "It's folly to believe that 40B is working as it was intended. I'd prefer to change the law, but every attempt (to do that) has failed."
Kezer agreed. "If we can't get the Legislature to make the changes, then let's throw the whole thing out and start again."
But for others, like Newburyport's Director of Planning and Development Andrew Port, the complex 40B law is a miasma of good and bad, which needs to be fixed, not killed.
"I don't think throwing the baby out with the bath water is going to correct anything," Port said, "but the very fact that there's a move to repeal 40B makes it starkly evident that the law needs to change."
Port's opinion was mirrored by planner and consultant Judi Barrett, who pointed out the flaws in the bill, but does not believe it should be repealed.
And for Gornstein, repealing 40B would leave the state's affordable housing needs in a shambles. The only option to protect low- to moderate-income residents, he said, is to vote "No" on question 2 at the polls, and then work on reforming the law afterwards.
