SEB Housing

  However, the HAC’s discretion to overturn local decisions applies only to cases involving a city or town that has not met its regional fair share obligations under the statute. If the city or town meets one of the statutory minima, the HAC is required to uphold the decision as “consistent with local needs.” For more details, please contact our top 40B Compliance Consultants at 617-782-2300.

  While 80% of Massachusetts cities and towns voted last November to save 40B, it is clear from my experience that most suburban communities don’t like it and would rather have developers use their own inclusionary bylaws to create affordable housing. Having researched many of these bylaws, I have to conclude that the economic realities of developing mixed income housing has been ignored in drafting these bylaws. In order to stimulate or induce affordable housing development in lieu of any “as-of-right” development options, there needs to be an economic or financial incentive, yet most inclusionary bylaws totally fail in this regard. The Governor’s “ Smart Growth Tool Kit ” has developed a model inclusionary bylaw which allows 2 additional market rate units to be built for every affordable unit required. This makes sense to me as the economic loss of creating an additional affordable unit can only be offset by adding 2 more market units (in some communities with lower land values a...

  Once it has an approved Housing Production Plan, the community that meets an annual (or a biennial) target for creating new low- or moderate-income units becomes eligible for a certification of compliance from DHCD. During the certification period, the ZBA may deny a comprehensive permit and its decision will not be overturned by the HAC. (Housing Production Plan certification is one of several “safe harbor” provisions in DHCD’s Chapter 40B regulations. See Chapter 4, Safe Harbors for more information.) The housing production targets are based on the number of year-round units reported in the community’s most recent decennial census. The minimum threshold for a one-year certification is new low- or moderate-income units equal to 0.5 percent of the community’s year-round housing; for a two-year certification, it is 1 percent. The units must have been created within the same calendar year as the date of the community’s certification request to DHCD. More information about the Housi...

  However, the HAC’s discretion to overturn local decisions applies only to cases involving a city or town that has not met its regional fair share obligations under the statute. If the city or town meets one of the statutory minima, the HAC is required to uphold the decision as “consistent with local needs.” For more details, please contact our top 40B Compliance Agents at 617-782-2300.

  If the ZBA believes it can deny the comprehensive permit because the community meets one of the statutory minima or qualifies under one of the other “safe harbor” provisions, it makes sense to provide written notice to the developer the first night of the public hearing. The notice must be given within 15 days of opening the public hearing, and usually, the ZBA knows before the hearing begins whether the community is in a position to exercise the safe harbor option. For more details about Affordable Housing Lotteries in Massachusetts , please contact us at 617-782-2300.

Development B Assume Development B takes 9 months after the lottery to lease up their 60 affordable units. Here are some questions: After the lottery, they still have lots of vacancies. How soon after the lottery must they affirmatively marketing the availability? What would be considered sufficiently populated for a large 60 unit, highly desirable building that has less than 10% of unit turnover a year? The property has a large marketing budget. The required marketing while their waiting list is open is every quarter. As such. they might be more inclined to simply continually market rather than close their waiting list and deal with the nuances of reopening it. To avoid this, the guidelines state that the Waiting List must be closed once there are a certain amount of applicants on it. What should this maximum amount be? And from the date of the original lottery to the date that the max threshold is hit, can they just add applicants first-come first served? Once they have so many house...