Why are some communities opposing affordable housing plans? Boston City Council president weighs in.
BOSTON - Despite the implementation of the MBTA Communities Act, a state law that requires cities and towns with T service to adjust their zoning to allow for more multi-family housing, there is still resistance in many areas to affordable housing development.
Is the problem NIMBYism?
All sorts of objections are cited - traffic congestion, school overcrowding, pressure on the local environment, and even the potential for changes to the "character" of a community.
"Housing is the number one issue in our city," said Boston City Council President Ruthzee Louijeane. You could say the same for the rest of the state.
So WBZ-TV asked Louijeane: How much of this resistance is NIMBYism - the attitude that more housing is needed but "not in my backyard" - and what can be done about it?
"I do know that NIMBYism sometimes is a problem," she said. "What I always try to say whenever I'm at a community meeting or speaking to constituents is 'I understand that you have reservations, that you have concerns, maybe, about the height or the number of units or the number of parking spots, but what can we say yes to? Where's our yes? How can we find a collective yes where we realize that every neighborhood has a responsibility to really help us with our housing crisis? And what can we say yes to, where? How can we get to yes together?' That means, how do we make everyone maybe 70% happy or 50% happy? That should be the goal."
One tactic the City of Boston uses is requiring developers to make a percentage of their new units affordable to low- and middle-income renters or buyers as a condition of permitting. Some critics say that serves as a disincentive to new construction.
"It has to be a balance"
"It has to be a balance," Louijeane said. "We had a 13% inclusionary development policy, and that was just not... it wasn't generating enough affordable housing. Now, we are at 20%. There was a whole committee put together of developers and activists and community leaders to figure out what the right balance would be, and they landed at 20% with this creative idea of 17% being through normal lottery, and 3% set aside for BHA (Boston Housing Authority) voucher holders."
How's that working?
"We're watching, but there are a lot of developers who can build that 20%. I think what we've seen at the last few years is...the labor costs, is financing issues, and so we are actually trying to respond as a city," she said. "We passed the Accelerator Fund, which is going to help with last-mile, bridge funding for a lot of these projects that are almost ready to start, but just need that last mile of funding. ... That's a loan for these developers, [so] we end up getting the money back with a four- to six-percent return. ... So, I think, 20% is doable, but we do need to continue to work with developers to think, what else can we do to make the development happen quicker? Because a lot of the costs come in when it takes a longer time to build a property."
Inspired by MLK
Other topics discussed with the second-term at-large councilor included public trust and ethical issues on the council. But Louijeane concluded the interview with some thoughts on the coincidence of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday falling on the same day as the inauguration of Donald Trump to a second term, a prospect daunting to some civil rights activists.
Dr. King "represented the intersection of racial justice, of voting rights, of economic justice," Louijeane said.
"He was assassinated fighting for black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. It means that the fight for economic justice is inextricable for the fight for racial justice. I know that we're going to have challenges ahead. So many of our communities, vulnerable communities, are going to have challenges ahead," she said. "But Martin Luther King Jr. was 39 years old when he died - 39 years old - and there's no way that you can accomplish all of that without some level of fear. But there is a tremendous amount of courage, knowing that when we work collectively together on behalf of all of our residents, from Mattapan to Hyde Park to Charlestown to East Boston, that we will progress as a city, regardless of what's happening nationally, and that we need to look out for each other and for all of our neighbors."
You can watch the entire interview here and join WBZ-TV every Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. for the weekend edition of "Keller At Large."
