City Council considers lowering affordability minimums to build more homes

Waltham’s legislators are considering an adjustment to the city’s affordable housing requirements to incentivize more developers to build affordably.

At the Jan. 20 meeting of the City Council’s Ordinances and Rules Committee, City Solicitor Katherine Laughman presented a series of possible housing reforms suggested by the Metropolitan Area Planning Council.

The city hired the MAPC to evaluate its affordable housing legislation and counsel the city on how to comply with the MTBA Zoning act, Laughman said. The city also asked the MAPC to evaluate how feasible Waltham’s current affordability requirements are for residential construction in the long term.

The organization’s analysis found that Waltham’s current housing requirements were reasonable for small residential developments of eight or fewer units and in some cases for very large developments of 75 units or more. But the costs imposed by the requirements would be prohibitive for many housing developments in between.

In a September email Laughman presented to the committee, the MAPC laid out four policy options it had brainstormed with the city’s Law Department that would better incentivize affordable housing construction in the city through changes to the affordable unit minimums, what units have to cost to be considered affordable, and parking space requirements for new developments to lower their overall cost. 

In all of these cases, the organization calculated whether housing is affordable based on its costing no more than 30% of a household’s monthly income. Units priced for households making up to 80% of the area median income are considered affordable units by the state.

All four MAPC options imposed different requirements on smaller developments of 18 or fewer units and larger developments of 19 or more units, in line with current requirements. At the moment, the city requires that 15% of units in new buildings with eight to 18 units are rated as affordable. In buildings with 19 or more units, developers are required to add an additional 5% of units that would be affordable for households at 50% AMI.

Council President and Ward 9 Councilor Robert G. Logan spoke in favor of the amendments.

“There has not been one single request for a special permit to develop housing of any kind since [the affordable housing requirement] was increased to 20%,” he said.

The Ordinances and Rules Committee agreed to temporarily table the matter so that committee members could consider the proposed options in more detail before the committee’s next meeting.

Summary of affordability requirements for housing development

Development size	Option 1	Option 2	Option 3	Option 4
Up to 18 units	10% of all units in a development must be affordable.   ⅔ of all affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% of the area median income, and the other ⅓ for residents making 60% AMI.	15% of all units in a development must be affordable.  All affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% AMI.	10% of all units in a development must be affordable.  ⅔ of all affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% AMI, and the other ⅓ for residents making 50% AMI. Developers only need to build 1.5 parking spaces per unit in the development, instead two.	15% of all units in a development must be affordable.  All affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% AMI.
19 or more units	15% of all units in a development must be affordable.  ⅔ of all affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% AMI, and the other ⅓ for residents making 60% AMI.	15% of all units in a development must be affordable.  ⅔ of all affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% AMI, and the other ⅓ for residents making 50% AMI.	15% of all units in a development must be affordable.  ⅔ of all affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% AMI, and the other ⅓ for residents making 50% AMI. Developers only need to build 1.5 parking spaces per unit in the development instead of two.	15% of all units in a development must be affordable.  ½ of all affordable units should be priced for residents making 80% AMI, and the other ½ for residents making 50% AMI. Developers only need to build one parking space per unit in the development instead of two.