Planned Liveable Communities points out that the smart growth plan that Romney and the Legislature have instituted isn’t working. In essence, the plan allows towns to get around the developer override built into Chapter 40B (developers can get around zoning law if a town falls below a certain threshold of affordable housing units) by agreeing to denser development. Only towns are slow in signing up, and the usual suspects are opting out.
PLC’s writer complains that middle-class inner suburbs, who are doing "their share" already, are being singled out. "While I support smart-growth concepts, I’m NOT in favor of willy-nilly turning middle-class inner-ring suburbs into urban areas while allowing richer communities to continue building more McMansion developments unchecked." She may be right about the numbers of who’s creating which affordable units where, something I know nothing about. And like her, I’d love to see the Legislature stick it to the more obstructionist of the wealthy exurbs.
Still, might the 40R plan not be all bad. After all, I know that PLC admires some form of new urbanism, and densities of "eight single-family dwellings per acre, 12 two- or three-family residences per acre, or 20 apartments or condominiums per acre, all on land that is either downtown, near a town center, near transit, or on a vacant industrial site" (Globe) are not incompatible with new urbanist ideals or practice. It’s hardly changing the inner-ring to urban area, especially that it would apply only to select areas of those suburbs. In other words, it would be making pockets of Brookline, not pockets of Back Bay or the West End. (For reference, Cambridgeport has on average 17 units an acre.)
Quibbling aside, her point remains: there’s likely going to be no adequate solution to the housing crisis until school financing is changed. The problem of sprawl and urban/suburban development just adds a complication to this fundamental stumbling block.
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