Question:Why would the Waban Area Council want to sponsor a City-wide forum/panel discussion on the ins and outs of the process that developers may follow to produce multi-unit housing with affordable housing requirements in our city? The answer depends on how well you can answer these questions:
1.) Do you know what a “Regular 40B” is?
2.) Do you know what a “Friendly 40B” is?
3.) Do you know what a “Special Permit” is?
4.) Do you know when you and other residents can have your say?
5.) Do you know what the Zoning Board of Appeals can do in determining approval or denial of a “40B”?
If your answer to any of the questions above is not a resounding: “Yes, I have a clear understanding of the State’s 40B Statute and the City’s Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance,” then we suggest that you attend the panel discussion to be held on Thursday, May 1 at 7:30pm in the Newton War Memorial Auditorium.
Answer:The Waban Area Council is sponsoring this event because the Councilors believe that it is important:
- To educate the residents of Newton about the basic process through which developers get Permits.
- To educate the public about the points in the timeline of this process when the community can have its “say” and what that “say” can modify.
- To explain the jargon: Regular 40B’s; Friendly 40B’s; Local Initiative Program; and the Inclusionary Zoning Ordinance.
- To translate unfamiliar acronyms such as SHI and HAC, whose meaning is integral to understanding the process.
- To reduce the confusion of learning about this process when this kind of development is first being considered in your Village.
We have gathered the experts who work with the developers to apply these regulations in our City and who are most knowledgeable about how the process works. These are the panelists who have generously agreed to share their expertise with all of us: Candace Havens, Newton’s Director of Planning and Development; James Freas, Newton’s Chief Planner, Long Range Planning; Alderman Marcia Johnson, Chair of the Zoning & Planning Committee of the Board of Aldermen; and Brooke Lipsitt, Member of the Zoning Board of Appeals. The panel will be moderated by the Secretary of the Waban Area Council, Kathy Winters. There will be a question and answer period following the panel presentation.
THIS EVENING IS NOT ABOUT ANY SPECIFIC HOUSING DEVELOPMENT. IT IS MEANT TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO NEWTON RESIDENTS ABOUT THE ZONING PROCESS THAT UNFOLDS WHEN A HOUSING DEVELOPER SHOWS INTEREST IN BUILDING MULTI-UNIT HOUSING WITH AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMPONENT IN OUR CITY.
I wish I could go but I have to work. One thing I’d really like to know: how to ensure that any affordable units will be affordable in perpetuity, and not drop off the rolls in a few decades, thus remaining in the denominator but not in the numerator of the ratio of affordable to total units, and making trying to achieve the 10% target akin to walking up a ‘down’ escalator.
@Julia: I don’t want to give you bad information. That said, I will say that I believe that “affordable housing” as defined originally in Chapter 40B was not permanently so, but slipped back to market rate housing after a certain number of years. I believe that the legislature fixed that loophole and that now all new construction that is set up for affordable housing remains that way in perpetuity. I believe that we still have a significant number of units that will go to the market rate in the next decade. I don’t know if the State Housing Inventory differentiates between permanent and non-permanent affordable housing when it lists the number of units of affordable housing in each municipality. I hope that our panel can tell you and others whether I am correct in my thinking. This is an extremely complex process and we all should learn about it thoroughly. If someone has better info (maybe THM), please speak up! Happy Easter all!
Get educated and informed! Don’t forget! The panel discussion is tomorrow night, Thursday, May 1st. We won’t have a Maypole, but we will weave a clear picture of zoning exception processes for housing development!!
Bruins vs Montreal tonight at 7:30 Sallee!
Perform your NewtonServes mitzvah by taking notes and posting “The idiots guide to 40B” on V14.
Tra-la, it’s May, the merry month of May!
Hey, Terry: Not that I’m saying anything to jinx the Bru-wins…but, what if you watch or go to the game, instead of coming to this outstanding program – a program that is a true service to the entire Newton community – and then our fabulous team loses? Oi. Maybe you could come to the War Memorial, and go out occasionally to catch the “SCORE” and be better able to deal with the complexities of housing life in Newton!
But, just in case…technology willing…we will be putting the video on our website (www.wabanareacouncil.com) soon after!
@Sallee. I also can’t make it because we have our Area Council meeting this evening and I take the notes. I will definitely view the rerun on your website. Maybe Newton TV could also air it. I think there’s definitely enough public interest about the topic. Thanks again for providing this great public service. I hope it’s just the first effort to give high public visibility to zoning and related issues. There’s more interest and concern about this than a lot of folks recognize.
@Bob: Thanks for the suggestion about NewTV. I wrote to them on April 18, stating why I thought education on this issue to be extremely important and asking for their support. Haven’t heard from them, but can always hope they will attend this evening and report on it. I also wrote to the Newton Tab, asking for more consideration in the paper than the Events column for May 1. Apparently we didn’t qualify for IMPORTANT at the Tab. We were definitely outweighed by Wegman’s!
But, when residents storm City Hall with torches and pitch-forks, decrying some program they could have modified positively if they had known the process involved, it will be front page news.
Do I sound cynical?
I used this image in a reminder e-mail about this meeting that I sent to our Waban Area Council Google Group: “As the protagonist muses in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”, as he carves his mashed potatoes into the shape of Devil’s Tower, THIS IS IMPORTANT!”
For those that are not able to attend, will there be a write-up of this event for those who are interested in the topic. I dislike 40B and I regret that it wasn’t repealed in 2010.
We will have a hand-out available that is incredibly useful. You can pick it up at our next Waban Area Council meeting on May 8 at the Waban Library Center at 7:30pm. We may also be able to upload the handout and the video of the panel discussion to our website, but that might take a little time. Thanks for asking!
The program sounds well worth it. But I’m concerned that referring to certain residents in angry mob terms won’t get your “sinners” into the chapel.
@Hoss: You are of course, correct! It’s not that residents are sinners. If residents knew where they could have an actual positive effect that could help them to shape an outcome it would save them the possible anguish of spinning wheels in non-productive ways. I’m just frustrated that the press hasn’t shown more interest in helping to publicize this forum and was conjecturing that, if people were out of control, the papers would be so much more likely to call that news!
Sallee Lipshutz — As Ronnie Reagan might have said, “I paid for this NewTV”. If they won’t come to you, perhaps giving them the tape and asking that they run it on our funded outlet might work.
A night listening to 40B talk at city hall? There better be an open bar.
The handout sounds like a good idea; A clear, concise primer on 40B that the populace can read in their leisure time (between periods or innings) has a better chance of reaching residents.
Sallee Lipshutz — I think it would be helpful if your Waban council could get from the area housing authority a list of all Section 8 voucher addresses within your zip codes. The lists are easy to obtain since they are used in setting rental rates. Section 8 is completely invisible aspect of Affordable Housing (it’s not part of the 10% City goal, etc). I am totally confused as to why that is so. The stat would at least let you tell the story that yes, the Commonwealth’s needy are in our neighborhood (and happily invisible).
I love using subterranean libation station in a sentence,but come up dry for above grade!
On a serious note,we appreciate all the interest and ideas to further promote the material covered tonight.
Sorry for so many posts…. I might have misspoke. Section 8 in a given zip code can be from outside housing authorities like Boston, not just the local authority. But there must be some central database, you think?
@Hoss: I consider myself somewhat informed about 40B, but still have many questions. It is a very complex issue and the more we learn, the better we can understand what goes on around us. I am completely ignorant of Section 8’s. I have heard the term and believe it is some sort of subsidization to individuals/families in need of rental assistance. What its relationship to multi-unit residential development is, I haven’t a clue!
What counts in the 10% affordable housing target seems to be a mystery. If we want to work toward that goal, it would be helpful to know what counts, what doesn’t, and why!
I think 40B is a designation for a building to get aid and Section 8 is the means for people pay to live in the 40B situation or other private situations. My point is that if you count Section 8s not in a 40B — they are in the exact same situations — you have a full picture of who is in the community. Part of the rhetoric in the unfortunate engine 8 situation was that Waban doesn’t house the poor. Untrue. The stat was only counting what is called 40B situations.
i welcome any clarity on this since I like you am not an expert.
So, Hoss, join us tonight and maybe we can get this question cleared up! Wear a flower in your hair so I can recognize you! ;)
Hoss: I looked carefully for the telltale flower, but, alas, the TV flood lights were in my eyes and I missed you. Were you there? If not, I can tell you that you missed a wonderful opportunity to engage in discussions with the experts about this complex and confusing process. However, as Terry suggested, we will soon have our handout up on our website along with the video of the evening’s panel discussion. Jerry Reilly has also kindly posted the handout on this blog!