Boston.com reported this past week that a large 40B project in Needham was turned down by the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals. According to the article, the ZBA said “that the project would also have to follow town setback, elevation and open space requirements, and that the developer would have to pay for a traffic signal there.”. The developer is planning on appealing to the state’s Housing Appeal Committee.
An interesting detail is that this project wouldhave put Needham above the 10% threshold for 40B affordable housing. That means that if it was built, the town would not be required to accept future 40B projects so long as they remained above that threshold.
Here’s what puzzles me about the story:
As I understood the 40B rules, a developer by law is able to sidestep most of the town’s zoning laws. Yet in this case, the town seems to be applying all its zoning laws and turning down the project based on it’s non-compliance. I had always understood that this was not an option under the law.
So what’s going on? Does a town have more leeway than I imagined in reviewing 40B compliance with local zoning laws? Or is this just a stalling action by the town of Needham that is sure to be automatically overturned on appeal?
So let me get this straight: Needham lobbies the state for a new highway exit so they can build more businesses with more density and drive more traffic into the area, much of it undoubtably will spill over into Newton, then, when a 40B comes along just up the street from this exit, designed to protect Needham residents from the new interstate traffic, they cite traffic and density as reasons to stop the development? Hypocrites.
As I understand it, Newham is working on other big 40B projects. Their position seems to be that they’re supportive of big 40B projects, just not in that location. I think they’re looking at another project within the business center between Kendrick and N eedham St which would also use that exit. There is already another big 40B there – Charles River Landing.
I have no idea whether or not that rationale will fly with the state appeal board.
It sounds like N eedham is relatively close to hitting the 10% threshold for affordable housing. The project they just turned down or another big one in the business park would put them over 10%.
I’m a 40B newbie so correct me if I’m wrong, but based on the snippet below from the Needham Times, it seems as though the 10% threshold for 40B is completely bogus…in fact it’s more like 2.5%.
“Built in 2010, Charles River Landing is Needham’s largest 40B housing project. The complex has one and two-bedroom rental apartments. Charles River Landing has 88 affordable housing units and the rest are market rate. Because of the Chapter 40B law, all 350 units count toward fulfilling the town’s 10 percent affordable housing.”
Michael — 25% re that one
Needhams rejection is “unfriendly”. Hence the term “Unfriendly 40b” when it comes back from the state?
Adam,
Needham probably lobbied for the new exit ( if they did ), to build a greater tax base.
I’m not sure how a housing project “protects Needham residents from ” new interstate traffic”?
Acoustically ?
Bill, yes, Needham lobbied hard for the new exit to support new business parks along the edge of their town and increase their tax base. It’s a fact. Needham is also pushing the state to widen its stretch of Highland Ave for similar reasons.
Sorry my writing was unclear. It is the design of the new exit which protects Needham residents (along Greendale) from interstate traffic, not the proposed 40B housing development. This all happened at least 10 years ago. Needham, after lobbying for an exit, successfully convinced MassDOT to restrict turns off 128 (aka 95) towards Newton (and their business district) only to protect their residential neighborhoods. Traffic and density are fine, as long as it’s someone else’s problem.
I’m just confused as to how many units in a given town actually have to be affordable under 40B. I was quite happy to read Jerry’s story that Needham had gotten fairly close to the 10% threshold required under 40B.
My thinking was this: in Needham, there are 11,000 housing units. If 1,100 of them were to be affordable, then I’d say the town would have done an admirable job in promoting and achieving an economically-diverse community.
But once I look at the actual numbers in Needham, the reality is nowhere near that. In the case of Charles River Landing, only 88 of the units are affordable, but Needham is allowed to count all 350 units in the complex as being affordable.
So that strikes me as quite misleading, because in the end, any town can effectively get away with only having 2.5% of its units be affordable, which in the case of Needham would be a pittance – 275 units. Also, many of those units are for elderly residents (with Needham residency requirements) in complexes that had already existed for 50 years.
I’m very supportive of the goals of 40B, but the way I’m reading it, it seems to be a lot of smoke and mirrors.
On a related topic, when the Charles River Landing complex was first going in, Needham was up-in-arms that there were going to be hundreds of kids flooding into the local elementary school and not enough increased tax collection to compensate. But at the end of the day, increase in student enrollment was…17! Needless to say, the increased property tax collections covered those costs many times over – Charles River Place is assessed at $70 million. Why a community would drag its feet on a deal like that, I’ll never know. The rejection of the 40B project on Greendale Av. is a real shame, because that parcel is literally right next to (soon-to-be-widened) 128 and I don’t know how anybody could object to having a new development there; it doesn’t exactly change the character of the neighborhood. As usual the neighborhood came out with narrowminded and inaccurate claims that the local elementary school would be flooded with impoverished children, etc.
At any rate, I know that there was a very long 40B thread on V14 a few weeks back – I’ll have to read it to set myself straight.