As one does, I briefly spoke recently to an assembled group to seek support for construction of workforce housing in Great Barrington. I was trying to express that it will take a village to address Great Barrington’s lack of newly constructed multi-family housing. After the meeting, a gentleman came over to let me know that I had it all wrong, that market forces always take care of such things. When I tried to respond that the market’s invisible hand will not lift a finger to correct our housing imbalance, he turned to leave, repeating his market mantra on the way. Well, if I had been given the opportunity to respond, this is what I would have said …
Have you considered the lack of new construction of multi-family workforce rental housing in Great Barrington? Sure, existing structures have been and are in the process of being renovated and repurposed for rental housing, but there has been no new workforce construction—distinct from government-assisted affordable housing construction—in ages. Absent zoning modifications, this will not change.
In a housing-friendly area on a good day, multi-family construction without government assistance is a challenge, as with all new businesses, real estate ventures face brisk headwinds (e.g., increasing labor costs, material costs, interest rate risk, absorption concerns). But, with adequate planning, developers can manage these risks sufficiently to justify seeking the potential reward. But here in Great Barrington, this time-honored equation doesn’t add up.
To illustrate, let’s revisit for a moment a couple of local developers’ yearslong effort to construct 47 apartments (a mix of single, two-, and three-bedroom units) with a commercial component on 2.15 acres on Manville Street (sandwiched between Ward’s Nursery to the south and the Wainwright Inn Bed & Breakfast to the north). Notably, Manville Street is zoned as a Mixed-Use Transitional District (MXD)—that is, an area where the town permits multi-family housing. The developers acquired three lots, reasonably believing Manville Street—within walking distance to Main Street’s business district and grocery stores—would be a perfect spot for rental apartments.
Although in the MXD zone, the developers still needed the Selectboard to issue a special permit (also known as the place developments go to die). Among other things, the developers needed to increase the impervious area (paving) of a lot by more than 15 percent. A public hearing was convened where the developers went over their site plans, addressed stormwater and water-quality protections, tree removal and replacement, traffic impacts, and the like. The Selectboard must have liked what it heard, unanimously voting to issue the special permit after public comment in October 2018.
To the uninitiated, the Selectboard’s issuance of a special permit would be a moment to breathe a sigh of relief, but developers here know that a Great Barrington special permit is not the end of the process; rather, obtaining a Great Barrington special permit is merely an invitation to litigate. And litigation there was, between January 2019 and September 2020.
You likely recall how the Manville Street litigation turned out, or, if you don’t, you have no doubt noticed that there is not a newly constructed 47-unit mixed-use complex at the end of Manville Street hard against the railroad tracks. In the end, the Manville Street plaintiffs convinced the Land Court—housing needs be damned—to block the development. For those keeping score, it was a homeowner’s easement rights, one; Great Barrington workforce housing needs and continuing economic development, zero.
Setting aside land-acquisition costs (some of which were likely recouped by the developers in reselling the acquired houses for the project), the developers likely sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into site plan review, the special permit-application process, and on attorney’s fees to defend nearly two years of special permit litigation. Lesson learned. But in a larger sense, the battle over Manville Street serves as a red flag to every developer considering constructing new multi-unit housing in Great Barrington. As it stands now, a developer would have a greater likelihood of a positive return betting on the Jets than betting on making it through the special permit/Land Court-approval process for new rental housing construction. And at least with the Jets, the nightmare usually lasts only about three hours.
If Great Barrington wants to get serious about addressing its housing shortage – and it should get serious, because failing to get this right is putting the Great Barrington we love at risk – it needs to facilitate multi-unit workforce housing construction. Let’s consider, then, what can be done.
While the specifics should be left to the professionals (and by that, I mean the Planning Board in consultation with the Selectboard), there is a common-sense zoning change that the town can implement at Town Meeting that can remove the Manville Street taint and jumpstart the housing construction we desperately need now. In broad strokes, here goes: For a period of five years, the town creates an “as of right” (that is, without the need for a special permit, variance, zoning amendment, waiver, or other discretionary zoning approval) zone for new multi-family construction not to exceed 50 units in a corridor spanning half a mile on either side of Routes 7 and 23 in all areas served by both town water and sewer.
There will be some that will not want to give up their right to question every project that comes up. If we were not in an emergency situation, I would certainly understand that sentiment, but we find ourselves now in just such a situation. U.S. home vacancies hit a near all-time low at 0.8 percent in September. Massachusetts ranks near the bottom of states in increasing its housing stock, while (and this goes hand-in-hand) Massachusetts ranks as the fourth-most-expensive state to live in due to its “housing affordability” score. In Massachusetts, a two-bedroom apartment costs six times more than one in Michigan. No, I am not suggesting we all move to Michigan; the point is to make it possible for folks to live and work here by expanding our supply.
If we do this one thing for a brief period, we should be able to create enough supply to meet demand. Let’s make this zoning change now because we know there is no invisible hand that is going to help pull us up.
