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Blindsided: Baker administration yanks money from local housing authorities in suburbs balking at new apartment projects
When it comes to those NIMBY towns, state officials are finally putting their foot down.
But whether that foot is coming down on the right target is another question.
Six local housing authorities across Greater Boston, which provide well more than a thousand affordable apartments for elderly, low income and disabled residents, are scrambling after a 10.6 percent cut to their annual budgets, according to David Hedison, head of the Chelmsford Housing Authority.
State officials are making the cuts because local officials in the cities and towns in question - Waltham, Woburn, Saugus, Hamilton, Halifax and Whitman - have failed to comply with the new MBTA Communities law, according to a copy of the letters sent out to local officials.
Is our outgoing governor trying to send a message to NIMBY towns?
The spearhead of the Baker’s administration’s drive to combat the housing crisis, the law requires suburbs and cities to roll out new zoning rules that would clear the way for the construction of new apartments and condos around T stations.
The communities in question failed to take the initial steps required under the 2021 law, such as filing a “community information form” and holding a public hearing.
However, punishing local housing authorities for the actions of local select board members, city councilors and mayors is not only unfair, but it also risks alienating natural allies in the battle to build more housing, Hedison told Contrarian Boston.
The state chapter of the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, which includes local housing authority leaders, plans to meet with Jennifer Maddox, a top state housing official, to discuss its concerns, said Hedison, immediate past president of the organization.
“A law that is supposed to help create new affordable units is now negatively impacting the most vulnerable extremely low income residents,” Hedison said.
Still, the Baker administration’s move comes after talk in a number of suburbs about defying the housing push and taking the hit on some popular but relatively small infrastructure grants.
Slashing the budgets of local housing authorities is harder to ignore.
Maybe someone is trying to send a message here.
In Trump era, chains lead way in nixing political endorsements
By Mark Pickering
The two corporate chains that own the vast majority of local newspapers in Massachusetts have veered away from making endorsements of political candidates.
This move comes as newspapers cut budgets and loads of Republican candidates repeat the “Stop the Steal” election lies perpetuated by ex-President Trump.
Earlier this year, Gannett, which owns nine Massachusetts dailies, urged its papers to cut down on opinion pieces, in particular editorials. One rationale: Readers don’t want to be told what to do.
That’s not a convincing argument. A fresh, well-written editorial would likely work fine for readers who generally agree with the gist of the piece. For that reader, there’s nothing wrong with getting good debating points.
The editorial could, however, be infuriating to a partisan reader who strongly disagrees.
MediaNews Group’s new policy targets that problem. The newspaper chain owns the Lowell Sun, Sentinel & Enterprise and Boston Herald. MediaNews recently announced that its papers “will no longer endorse in presidential races or the increasingly nationalized contests for governor and (U.S.) Senate.”
The challenges for newspapers making endorsements have been building in the Trump era.
In 2016, the Herald did not endorse either candidate. Its “None of the above for president” editorial called both Hillary Clinton and Trump “deplorable” choices. Herald editorial writers would have been eager to endorse politically moderate Massachusetts Republicans like Mitt Romney. Just not The Donald.
In 2018, MediaNews bought the Herald. This changing of the guard meant the paper endorsed Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
This being Boston – which is heavily Democratic ‑ some news department staffers moved to distance themselves from the endorsement. The staffers made good points. And later on in the 2020 campaign, Trump infamously called on the Proud Boys, a group of fascist wannabees, to “stand by.” It was a truly creepy moment during a televised presidential debate.
As for Romney, as a U.S. senator he voted to convict Trump on impeachment charges in 2020 and again in February 2021. The latter was after the attack on the Capitol, which prominently featured the Proud Boys.
Regarding Gannett, all of its Massachusetts papers have followed company recommendations and stopped running editorials, if they had not done so already.
The websites for The Standard Times of New Bedford, The Enterprise of Brockton, the Taunton Daily Gazette and The Herald News of Fall River do not even have a category for “Opinion” – much less for editorials and political endorsements.
Mark Pickering is a veteran of the local news business, having worked on the business desk and the opinion pages of the Boston Herald.
About Contrarian Boston
I have fielded emails over the past couple of months asking what Contrarian Boston is about.
Here’s a link to our mission statement – you can find it in the “about” section.
For a more prosaic, nuts-and-bolts description, read on.
An online newsletter, Contrarian Boston publishes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. In Contrarian Boston you’ll find analysis of the day’s news, and original reporting as well.
Our focus is:
· Politics and all levels of governance, good and bad, with an emphasis on state and local, with some national mixed in;
· Economic growth and business, especially real estate, housing and new development projects;
· The media and why it does what it does;
· Education, from school board spats to the doings of multibillion-dollar university endowments;
· And whatever else catches our fancy.
Great points and thanks for sharing your experience on your local housing trust committee. The Baker policy is pretty standard - spur construction of more housing, with 10 or 20 percent set aside at below market rents or prices. The devil is in the details, for the affordable units may not be so affordable based on the metrics the individual town is using. That said, I'd argue we need more housing of all types, especially but no limited to affordable units.
I'm learning, as a member of my local housing trust committee which is focused on creating affordable housing in my community, that creating more affordable housing in MA is complex. For example, I've recently learned that the housing units controlled by local housing authorities do not count towards a town's 10% threshold of affordable housing, which is needed to be in compliance with 40B. That just reenforces your point that Baker's actions will have no impact on the towns and are punishing entities that have nothing to do with the issue at hand.
At the same time, you (and the Boston Globe) overstate the impact and intent of the MBTA Communities law. As I'm sure you know, unfortunately this law has no impact on creating affordable housing near T stations. Rather it requires mutlifamily zoning in every city and town (except Boston and, strangely, Avon) in the outer-greater Boston area (west to Ashby and Holden, north to NH, south to Fall River). IF you have a T station in your community, the zoning must be near the station. THAT is what this law does.
With regards to building multifamily housing around actual T stations, there are NO INCENTIVES for a developer to build affordable housing instead of market rate housing. In fact, it's a gift too developers to force this zoning in a Medford or anywhere, so they can build high end housing and market them as a easy commute to work in Boston. Why the lack of an affordability component in this law is not viewed as a huge flaw escapes me. In 10 years, it can have the unintended consequences of making the problem worse.
As for the impact of this on non-communities with a one-size fits all approach, it's to nice of a day out, so...that's it.