Letter to the Editor: Editorial Painted 40B All Wrong
Dear Editor,
As chairman of the Campaign to Protect the Affordable Housing Law and an advocate for creating affordable housing options for Massachusetts residents, I felt that it was very important to respond to your July 19 editorial, “Extended Approval.”
The editorial states there is an effort underway to “revise” the affordable housing law, Sections 20-23 of Chapter 40B through a ballot measure. The effort is not to revise the affordable housing law, but to eliminate it completely. If the proposed repeal passes, the state will lose its most effective tool to create affordable housing.
The editorial links the health of our state’s economy to construction projects, so its stance in favor of repealing the affordable housing law is puzzling. If ballot question No. 2 repeals the law, more than 12,000 units of housing in the pipeline would never get built and we would lose the construction jobs that go along with those developments.
The editorial ignores the fact that the affordable housing law is responsible for 80 percent of the affordable housing created in Massachusetts, outside the major cities, over the past decade. Almost half of all of the affordable units created using this law were developed by nonprofit organizations, like Habitat for Humanity, and by local housing groups.
Businesses of all sizes need the affordable housing law so their employees can afford to live here. In addition, seniors would have trouble affording to stay in the communities where they have lived their whole lives, and working families wouldn’t be able to afford to live in the communities where they grew up.
While we support and have supported efforts to improve on this already effective law, that is not what this ballot question seeks to do. It would simply throw out the law without anything to replace it.
The Campaign to Protect the Affordable Housing Law has the support of all three candidates for governor as well as other political leaders from across the political spectrum. It doesn’t matter what party you belong to, no one wants to hurt seniors and working families. We appreciate your interest in this topic which is central to the future economic health of Massachusetts.
Tripp Jones
Chairman, Campaign to Protect the Affordable Housing Law
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