Above is video taken of the November 21 Housing Needs Assessment meeting courtesy North Street Neighborhood Association.
About fifteen people attended the Housing Study meeting held Saturday, November 21 at the Senior Center on Conz Street to discuss the issue of housing affordability in the city of Northampton. I half expected to see the room populated with people who live in the type of housing that was the topic of the meeting but that did not seem to be the case. I was hoping to hear some first hand perceptions from consumers regarding how the city adds to and manages its Affordable Housing stock.
It was reported Northampton's Affordable Housing stock inventory hovers around the 11-12% threshhold. That is Affordable with a capital, "A." This is the subsidized housing stock as tracked by the government. It is quantifiable because the government can track grants, vouchers and other subsidy instruments and then correlate the financial numbers with the numbers of people served.
The state requires its 351 municipalities to meet or exceed a 10% threshhold when it comes to subsidized Affordable Housing. It was reported at the meeting several surrounding cities or towns meet this goal while others do not. (That is not to say communities not meeting the goal do not have housing that is affordable.) One of the penalties of not attaining the state goal is reduced local control over planning and development issues. From MGL c. 40B s. 20:
“Consistent with local needs”, requirements and regulations shall be considered consistent with local needs if they are reasonable in view of the regional need for low and moderate income housing considered with the number of low income persons in the city or town affected and the need to protect the health or safety of the occupants of the proposed housing or of the residents of the city or town, to promote better site and building design in relation to the surroundings, or to preserve open spaces, and if such requirements and regulations are applied as equally as possible to both subsidized and unsubsidized housing. Requirements or regulations shall be consistent with local needs when imposed by a board of zoning appeals after comprehensive hearing in a city or town where (1) low or moderate income housing exists which is in excess of ten per cent of the housing units reported in the latest federal decennial census of the city or town or on sites comprising one and one half per cent or more of the total land area zoned for residential, commercial or industrial use or (2) the application before the board would result in the commencement of construction of such housing on sites comprising more than three tenths of one per cent of such land area or ten acres, whichever is larger, in any one calendar year; provided, however, that land area owned by the United States, the commonwealth or any political subdivision thereof, or any public authority shall be excluded from the total land area referred to above when making such determination of consistency with local needs.
The town of Sunderland has a housing situation which exemplifies this type of problem. There a developer would like to build about 150 units of dense lower priced subsidized housing. Resistant Sunderland officials argue, as reported in the Gazette on numerous occasions, the town cannot absorb the increases in services this proposed influx of housing would bring. They argue further the town has plenty of housing that is affordable, it is just not classified that way by the state as it is not tracked because it is not subsidized.
As a lesson learned perhaps communities should explore the use of anonymous property owner surveys inserted with tax bills utilizing monetary ranges in an attempt to collect this type of data. If an effort like this was successful Massachusetts cities and towns could then petition the state to amend its reporting reqirements. Why should a community which contains ample affordable housing, affordable with a small, "a," be penalized when it comes to planning regulations?
Not counting this type of uncollected information Northampton exceeds the formal government 10% Affordable Housing threshhold by about 20% (At 12% We exceed the 10% threshhold by 2%. 2% is 20% of 10%). On the surface some might think we don't have to be in a rush to build more affordable housing units; that maybe the conversation does not need to focus on the numbers and dollars of building more units but rather on the numbers and dollars of improving what we have. Perhaps city officials should look into the living conditions that exist in these units and look to improve management and maintenance. To forward that idea the Housing Partnership and Housing Authority and/or other agencies could conduct a voluntary anonymous city survey of consumers of lower priced subsidized housing to gather opinion.
These approaches might be helpful because intermingled with Northampton's recent electoral theater were allegations of discrimination and racism in Northampton Housing Authoritiy holdings as brought forth by Casa Latina, Inc. and raised by Michael Bardsley during a mayoral debate. Public housing conditions also surfaced in the Ward One race between Maureen Carney and Andrew Vidal-McNair where issues of poor maintenance, racism and classism bobbed about mouth-to-ear and online concerning the candidates' alleged views on lower priced subsidized housing. Moreover, Angela Plassmann, Northampton's Ward 3 Councilor Elect, made visiting the government subsidized Walter Salvo House at 81 Conz Street a priority during her campaign and is holding her first office hours there Saturday, December 12 from 10 am – 1 pm. At this meeting perhaps people who dwell in this type of housing might discuss the environment they live in. What do they like? What would they change?
In addressing the market's failure to construct new lower priced housing how best should government officials intervene in the free market? Are local inclusionary zoning ordinances in our future, where a certain percentage of new housing unit developments must pass muster with local government Affordable Housing standards regardless of state threshholds?
A bit of an oxymoron, Affordable Housing relates to how much it costs to dwell within these types of units and not how much it costs to build and maintain them. As you can see by watching the video Affordable Housing is not inexpensive to build and maintain. It takes significant money combined with both compensated and volunteer staff time for it to come about.
Northampton's public housing context further illustrates a problem I see with grant chasing. Cash grants which can be freely used when attained are seen as more efficient in providing utility for a city's or town's residents. Supposedly local officials know best the members of their home communities and the corresponding preferences of the majority. Community Development Block Grants can be used for a broad range of purposes for example, from sidewalk construction to social service needs to construction of a Senior Center. However, with freely used cash grants who is to say how local decision makers might expend the money and why. This is one reason why Federal and State governments micro-manage their housing programs in part, because then they don't have to watch closely local politics. The money granted can be used only for certain purposes with somewhat strict guidelines. In this way grants are a great way for higher tiers of government to mold public policies at lower levels. Nonetheless local policy making based strictly on grant seeking is less than a comprehensive approach for establishing reasonable community goals, for housing or anything else.
Finally according to the Boston Globe a boost in tax revenues is allowing Governor Deval Patrick to reverse his October decision to cut funding to homeless shelters in the current fiscal year.
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