Posted by Ed on July 25, 2007, 10:47 am Hoping to harness the simmering outrage over the state's affordable State and local politicians are also advocating various changes to Critics say that the law has encouraged huge profits and other On Monday, John Belskis, founder of the Coalition for the Reform of If it is approved by the attorney general's office, Belskis plans to "I think we can do it," said Belskis, who has battled the law for "It's a developers' welfare program that doesn't really create But 40B supporters, -- a group that includes politically connected "Without 40B, there would be a lot less affordable housing," said Repealing 40B, he said, would be a bad idea. Phil Hailer -- spokesman for the state Department of Housing and Chapter 40B allows developers to bypass local building regulations, According to the state's Department of Housing and Community Local officials and residents in many towns around Boston resent the Between 1999 and 2004, more than 70 bills designed to amend or Senator James Timilty, for example, has called for a three-year "A lot of people believe 40B isn't working," said Tim O'Neill, When the law was enacted in 1969, middle-class families were For its 30 years, 40B was not much of a community concern; only a But in 1999, the state's Housing Appeals Committee decided that Traditional homebuilders and national real estate investment trusts Last week, the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the Housing Appeals Some municipal advocates have long argued that private banks should The day after the housing decision, critics of 40B decided to launch McConville can be reached at cmcconville@globe.com.
24.34.144.49
Group seeks to repeal housing law
Says developers unfairly profit
By Christine McConville, Globe Staff | July 25, 2007
housing law, a group of activists opposed to the law has launched
the first-ever statewide effort to repeal it.
the law, first enacted in 1969 to encourage developers to build
affordable housing by offering them a smoother path through local
building regulations.
abuses by some developers. The state inspector general's office has
investigated several projects and found that developers exceeded the
maximum profit allowed under the law.
40B, went to the office of the attorney general to begin the process
of getting an initiative to repeal the law on the November 2008
ballot.
begin collecting the necessary 66,593 signatures of registered
voters in September. The petition would be presented to the
Legislature in January 2008.
four years. Belskis, a retired telephone worker who lives in
Arlington, plans to tap coalition members, who represent 132 towns
in the Commonwealth, to help him out.
affordable housing," he said yesterday. "It just doesn't work."
real estate developers, lawyers, and bankers -- say the law
encourages the building of critically needed lower-cost housing in a
state where housing costs are out of reach of working-class people.
Paul Wilson, a lawyer who has represented dozens of 40B developments.
Community Development, which oversees the law -- declined to comment
on the petition, because he had not seen a copy of it.
as long as one quarter of the housing units are sold at below-market
rates to qualified buyers.
Development, 31 percent of all new housing units built in
Massachusetts in 2005 were built under the law.
developments because they have no say in projects that, they say,
are generally too big.
abolish Chapter 40B were filed at the State House.
moratorium on all 40B developments.
Timilty's chief of staff. "The senator wants to take some time to
investigate it and see what to do about it."
abandoning cities for the suburbs. Urban legislators, concerned that
cities would become warehouses for the poor, crafted the law as a
way to counter that trend.
few developers knew how to navigate the governmental agencies that
subsidized the projects.
private banks could finance the developments, and developers began
to take advantage of the law.
started using the law to convert land that had long been undeveloped
into apartment complexes, and local officials began begging
legislators for relief.
Committee's 1999 decision that private banks can subsidize the
developments.
not be financing the projects, because with the finances comes an
obligation to ensure that other parts of the law, such as the profit
limitations, are enforced. Critics say they don't trust private
banks to serve as project overseers.
the repeal effort.
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This statement may go over some peoples heads but Forced Housing
destorys town budgets from overtaxing their infrastructure. Town
Leaders then become Vulnerable by seeking more revenue and consider
inappropriate projects such as POWER PLANTS.
So anyone profiting from 40B's or think they are some feel good
project which helps the needy, need to wake up and understand 40B's
are neither.
Think about!!!
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