Next generation, local workers cannot stay
Bonnie Sims was running out of options.
The single mother of two wanted to stay in her hometown of Northborough. The town's high cost of housing had forced her to move in with her parents, but she knew that arrangement couldn't last forever.
''I like Northborough," said Sims, 35, who works as an office manager for her father's company. ''It's the town I grew up in."
''This is where all their friends are," she added, referring to her children.
Last year, a new housing development called Sunnyside Estates on Route 135 offered Sims what she was looking for -- a chance to own a home in Northborough at a price she could afford. Under a state law that aims to increase affordable housing by allowing builders to sidestep zoning restrictions if a quarter of the units are offered at below-market rates, four of the condominiums in the 16-unit development were sold for $125,000 apiece. Through a lottery, Sims was selected to buy one of them.
Local housing advocates are hoping people like Sims will help put a familiar face on the need for affordable homes in Boston's western suburbs, where the median price of a home in 2003 was $380,000.
Affordable housing advocates have teamed up with leaders in the economic development and building communities to hold a series of meetings throughout the region aimed at debunking what they call persistent misconceptions about affordable housing, and to show how a lack of affordable homes can affect the whole community. The next meeting will be held at 7:30 tonight at Bolton Town Hall. Another is scheduled for 4 p.m. next Thursday at Franklin Town Hall.
Sims is one of several local residents and officials featured in a video that will be shown at the meetings. The campaign has been organized primarily by the 495/MetroWest Corridor Partnership, an economic development organization based in Westborough, and the Boston-based Citizens Housing and Planning Association, which hopes to channel public awareness into the creation of 13,000 new homes across the area by 2010.
For many suburban residents, their introduction to the debate on affordable housing has often been a specific -- and controversial -- proposal for a development in their community. Sunnyside Estates, for example, was attacked by residents who were concerned about the development's density and potential traffic problems. But organizers of the new campaign say they hope people will begin to think about the issue of housing in newer, broader ways.
Lynn Sand, chief executive of the 495/MetroWest Corridor Partnership, said she prefers to think of affordable housing as ''workforce housing," because many of the people who are struggling with the region's home prices are teachers, police officers, or firefighters.
Westborough, for example, used to require that all firefighters live in town, said Chief Walter Perron, who also is featured in the video. When the town's housing prices started to increase, the rule was modified to include a ring of contiguous towns such as Shrewsbury and Northborough. When that rule, too, became difficult to abide by, it was expanded to include an additional ring of communities, Perron said in an interview. Westborough has lost applicants for firefighting positions once candidates learned about the residency requirement, Perron said.'The housing market out here is just completely out of sight," he said. ''I don't think there's really a whole lot the town can do about it."
In the private sector, too, many employers have identified the high cost of housing in Massachusetts as a barrier to recruiting job candidates. That could ultimately force a company to relocate, Sand said, which would mean a loss of revenue to the town. It could also force established homeowners to face moving or losing their jobs.
''The haves can become the have-nots," Sand said.
Along with concrete hurdles such as the high cost of land and the lack of helpful zoning laws, housing advocates have said they are hamstrung by public misconceptions about what affordable housing is and for whom it is meant. The bleak image of a high-rise apartment is what many people conjure, they said, rather than the neatly appointed villages of condominiums that have been built recently in many communities.
Helen Lemoine, a former Framingham Planning Board member who is helping to organize the local meetings, said it is difficult for residents to recognize the need for more housing when they have been comfortable in their own homes for so long.
''The feeling has been that the need for affordable housing is overblown," Lemoine said. She came face-to-face with the realities of the local housing market when her daughter, a teacher in Framingham, had to move back home while searching for housing she could afford.
Under state guidelines, 10 percent of a community's total housing stock is supposed to sell or rent at below-market rates, and several communities in the region are still far from that goal. Less than 1 percent of Dover's housing is considered affordable, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. In Boylston, the number is 1.5 percent; in Sherborn, 2.35 percent.
But many communities are making progress toward the goal. Locally, both Westborough and Framingham have achieved the 10 percent mark, according to the state. Franklin is over 9 percent, and Lincoln and Marlborough are both over 8 percent. The community meetings will include some discussion of what communities are doing to increase their affordable housing stock.
''There's some good news out there," said Aaron Gornstein, executive director of the housing and planning association.
Bolton, Lincoln, Shrewsbury, and Stow are among about 25 communities that have state-approved affordable housing plans, which are intended to map out housing production.
Bolton is about to open a 28-unit apartment complex for residents 55 and older that will rent almost entirely at below-market rates, said Doug Storey, a member of the Planning Board and chairman of the town's affordable housing partnership. The town also has been presented with several proposals under the state's Chapter 40B law, Storey said.
Although residents have had concerns about some of those proposals, he believes Bolton has been proactive in raising awareness about the need for affordable housing.
