40B, Part III - The Problem

40B sounds like a great idea, until you realize that it is a no-win scenario.

First of all, let's call 40B "workforce" housing, because it is intended to provide housing for those individuals who work for a living, but cannot afford a $350,000 mortgage.

The state allows a developer to appeal if a local zoning board refuses to permit a project, or puts too many conditions on the project. Because of this, we get the "there's nothing we can do because the developer will just get approval from the state" attitude that we've seen from our current town administration.


Before we go any further, I should make a full disclosure...

As Mr. S noted, my father-in-law, John Druley, has built several 40B developments in Falmouth. However, not all 40B developments are the same - there are good and bad - and I invite you to look at the projects Mr. Druley has built before passing judgement.

On Nickey Lane, Rebecca Ann Lane and Timothy Bourne Cartway you will find neighborhoods with a density and look that is no different from any other neighborhood in the area. You cannot tell which homes were sold as workforce housing and which were sold at market rates.

This is important, since the state doesn't want discrimination. From the outside, the homes must look identical so that no one can tell which is market rate and which is workforce.

Mr. Druley's latest 40B development - Altons Lane in Waquoit - is the least dense 40B project ever built in Falmouth. With 44 units on 36 acres, the houses are on 1/3 acre lots, there is 10 acres of open space and the condominium units will have a common, denitrifying septic system. If you have a problem with this development, then I doubt anything will please you.

Now contrast his projects with Little Pond Landing - which would put 168 units on 17 acres in an environmentally sensitive area next to an already overstressed salt pond. Or the Fresh Pond Farms project which came under fire when the developer added garages and other amenities to the market rate homes and not the workforce homes.

For those developers who believe in what 40B was meant to achieve - people like Mr. Druley - it is a good program that benefits Falmouth. For those developers who are simply looking for a way to get around local zoning and make a quick buck, it is a lousy deal for us.


...which brings us back to where we started with this post: the problem.

Although 40B sounds like a great idea - let developers bypass local zoning so that they build housing that is affordable to the working class - it is hampered by a minor problem: Ten percent.

Ten percent is the amount of "affordable" housing a town must have before it can deny a 40B project without worrying about an appeal to the state. Falmouth has not yet made it to 10 percent, and at the rate we're going, we never will.

Let's use an 8-unit development as an example. If this is a 40B, then two of the units will be workforce, but the other 6 units will be market rate. So even though we are adding affordable housing, we are also adding market rate housing. If we have 5,000 units, we need 500 affordable units. But if we have 5,008 units, we now need 501 units. For every affordable house, we're adding three or four market rate houses. We'll never catch up, or by the time we do, Falmouth will be a city.