From Lexington to Brookline, Salem to Arlington, the past year has seen several important victories in the fight to allow more housing in Massachusetts, where the paucity of new development and resulting housing shortage has both driven out young residents and driven up housing costs to among the highest in the nation.
Looking ahead, no single action on the horizon has the potential to be more consequential than Governor Maura Healey’s proposed $4.1 billion Affordable Homes Act, which would issue bonds to pay for an array of programs, including repairing public housing, providing expanded rental assistance, and spurring new construction for both affordable and market-rate housing.
By most accounts, the funding package seems to be moving through the Legislature with little opposition. But the act also includes more than two dozen non-spending policy provisions intended to speed housing construction. Not all of these provisions seem assured of passage, housing advocates and state officials say.
Perhaps most prominent among these endangered initiatives is one that would allow homeowners to build small “accessory” dwelling units, known as ADUs, on properties zoned for single-family homes — without obtaining variances. The proposal would effectively set statewide standards for those units, prohibiting towns from imposing strictures like parking minimums or requirements that occupants be related to the property owner. Towns, however, would still have authority to set “reasonable restrictions” over things like setbacks from property lines or restricting short-term rentals.
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The ADU proposal is widely viewed as one of the most efficient ways to add units to the state’s depleted housing stock. ADUs are by their nature small — Healey’s proposal would limit them to a maximum of 900 square feet — and therefore faster and less expensive to build than full-sized homes. That means they should also be more affordable to renters.
And because of the state’s abundance of areas zoned for single-family homes, just about every town will have eligible properties. According to an estimate by the Globe, some 950,000 homes in Massachusetts could accommodate an ADU in the yard. That said, the Healey administration predicts that only one in 100 of those homeowners will seek to build ADUs.
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Yet even that small percentage would put a significant dent in the state’s daunting housing shortage. Overall, the governor is hoping the Affordable Housing Act will spur the creation of 40,000 new homes statewide in the next five years. Of that, her administration projects ADUs could provide as many as 8,000 units — fully 20 percent of her goal.
Predictably, opposition to the ADU proposal is brewing among municipalities that fear losing any control over zoning. At a legislative hearing in early April, Jerry Frechette, vice chair of the planning board in Lowell, testified that the provision would “encourage the conversion of some of the most affordable single-family homes into investor-owned two-family homes,” raising the specter of longtime residents being driven out by outside vulture investors.
Similarly, Virginia Crocker Timmins, vice chair of the select board in Chelmsford, testified that the provision “usurps the rights of each municipality to set criteria for this type of usage” and asserted that Chelmsford already allows ADUs under rules that “are not overly restrictive.” She also warned that as many as 4,500 properties in her town of about 35,000 residents might be eligible for ADU construction, straining schools, roads, and infrastructure.
Housing advocates are worried that the arguments raised by Chelmsford and Lowell will be persuasive to legislators for whom local control over schools, public services, and development is a cherished tradition. But lawmakers should see beyond the narrow concerns of individual towns on the housing issue, where every town’s restrictive zoning rules serve only to worsen the entire state’s shortage.
Moreover, the arguments against the ADU provision are not persuasive. True, many towns have allowed the construction of ADUs, but their parking requirements and prohibitions on certain kinds of tenants have almost certainly prevented homeowners from seeking permits. According to a 2018 study by the Pioneer Institute, the average Massachusetts town that allows ADUs permits fewer than 3 units per year.
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By contrast, California saw ADU permits rise steadily after it passed a similar law in 2016. Since then, 80,000 ADUs have been permitted in the state. If that sounds like the flood of units that Chelmsford and Lowell officials are worrying about, think again.
Far fewer than 80,000 were actually built. And given that California has more than 5 times as many residents as Massachusetts, it seems plausible that the Commonwealth would be lucky to get the 8,000 ADUs it is projecting. The idea that Chelmsford might get more than 3,000 alone is unreasonable.
This is a critical moment — one of many to come — in the campaign to ameliorate Massachusetts’ housing shortage. Despite the honorable decisions by some towns, including Arlington and Brookline, to enact expansive zoning plans near MBTA stations, opposition to such rezoning has stiffened in a growing number of communities — most recently Rockport.
And other important provisions of Healey’s Affordable Homes Act might face strong opposition in the Legislature — including one that would allow municipalities to impose transfer taxes on real estate sales worth more than $1 million. The revenue would be dedicated to affordable housing projects in those towns.
It is essential, then, for lawmakers to recognize that the housing crisis is one shared by everyone in this state. Every town’s resistance to reasonable housing development will only worsen every other town’s shortage. The governor’s ADU proposal is one such reasonable plan. Don’t let it fail.
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Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us @GlobeOpinion.
