Public Safety and the Anti-Snobs

The high price of suburban homes hasn’t killed anyone—yet. But as home prices have soared beyond the reach of the average family in many communities, firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel are being forced to live out of town, depleting forces or extending response times. The cost of housing has chased other essential, if not emergency, workers out of many communities: in New York’s Westchester, the New York Times reports, snow days have increased as teachers move up to 50 miles away to find homes that suit their civil salaries. As the problem has grown, "affordable housing" is trading in its connotation of government-imposed blight for a welcome sound of salvation for affluent communities.

The media loves tales of such communities buying priced-out teachers fixer-upper ranches on the edge of town. In Massachussets, a 1969 regulation known as Chapter 40B has gotten more wide-ranging results. Chapter 40B allows a local zoning board to fast-track a development that dedicates 25 percent of its units to affordable housing. The “anti-snob” law’s heydey was in the 1980s, as housing prices took off due to the strong economy and as locals came to see that “the housing can blend in with the surroundings, and doesn't get inhabited by people who don't take care of their property,” says a report on the law’s effectiveness. Today, more than 175 Massachusetts towns have accommodated more than 25,000 homes under Chapter 40B.

Such is the success of Chapter 40B that attempts are underway to profit from its good name. This round of high real-estate prices has prompted developers to lobby Massachusetts legislators to modify the definition of "affordable housing" to shoehorn more upscale units into affluent communities under 40B.