Housing Report Card: 40B is a Failure

The Greater Boston Housing Report Card: 2006-2007 tells a distressing story about worsening affordability. The statistics conclude that 40B continues to fail affordable housing needs and the people of Massachusetts. Prepared by the The Center for Urban and Regional Policy (CURP) at Northeastern University, the report concludes:

  • Massachusetts' population declined 3.42% between 2000-2005
  • During the same time, vacancy rates in housing increased 67%
  • With a decreasing state population and record high vacancy rates, 40B still forced the construction of 28,109 expensive new homes
  • 40B construction since 2000 produced record low percentages of affordable housing.
During the same time:
  • Nearly 9,000 more families fell below the poverty level
  • New homes were built with a median price of $400,000
  • 91% of communities had median home prices well above $300,000
  • More than half of communities had median home prices above $400,000
  • Only 9% of communities had homes with prices between $200,000-299,999
  • There were NO communities with homes priced below $200,000
In the last seven years, 40B built more total units than the entire 31 years prior combined, but produced the least number of affordable units compared to alternative programs.

  • While 40B construction increased, the number of communities affordable to first time homebuyers plummeted 90%! (from 116 to only 6 out of 161 communities!)
  • Last year, the number of 40B affordable housing units produced statewide dropped 3.4%. But even this number represents their second best amount of affordable units produced in over a decade!
  • Proving that 40B doesn't work, 63% of new affordable units produced were accomplished by other programs, not 40B. 40B continues to get the lions share of funding from Beacon Hill!

The Case of Boston - Proving 40B is a sham:

The report card describes Boston as the Commonwealth's "perennial leader in affordable housing production." It added 630 new affordable units in 2006 alone. On average, it adds more than 500 more units of affordable housing every year. According to the report, Boston "does an especially good job of serving families and individuals at the lowest income levels," and that the city "serves households earning below 30%" all the way up to "middle income families earning between 80-120% of area median income."

How does Boston do this? It doesn't use 40B! Boston uses inclusionary zoning.

Inclusionary zoning is the highly successful approach that we advocate for in producing affordable housing, but its full implementation and success is regularly blocked by developer lobbyists!

Typical State & Developer Response:

Beacon Hill and developer lobbyists have responded in typical fashion, calling for more new housing and complaining about delays to 40B construction. They even publicly support S750, a senate bill that limits the ability of an abutter to appeal any 40B project and even if an appeal is granted, requires the abutter to pay for all the developers' costs, including legal costs, during the process!

Despite the fact that the report card points to a massive turnover of homes from older to younger buyers, Beacon Hill and developers are advocating for the construction of more than 17,000 new homes per year despite the highest vacancy rates in two decades! If this new 40B construction occurs, even less affordable housing will be produced and our land will be gobbled up by developers leaving nothing for real affordable housing programs.