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PETER MOST: Debatable

Carole, thank you for this opportunity to consider these issues together.

Editor’s Note: The following is a conversation between Carole Owens and Peter Most regarding local versus state control of housing and clean energy.

Written by Carole Owens

Folks called and said Peter Most was unkind or unfair to me or both in his column purportedly responding to mine. Got it. To go postal and start a World War III of words seemed less than productive. We talked—good conversation—and decided to publish a joint column explaining our points of view with, and here’s the important bit, the mutual respect we actually feel. Here goes…

Every human being deserves dignified response. If fact, the rich mix of diverse opinions, when included and respected, will bring forth the best decision.

If you set up a decision-making table, there is room at it for NIMBYs—let’s call them preservationists. Just as there must be a chair for those who cannot quickly enough deliver Berkshire County into the 21st century even if that means tearing down some old stuff. Let’s call them progressives. Around the table, place chairs for the other opinions along the continuum. Put that table in a room filled with mutual respect and willingness to listen. Then, and maybe only then, will the best decision emerge.

The brightest among us do not pick a position and spout the perfection of that choice. The brightest among us know there are no perfect solutions, no best idea to peddle. The brightest among us know that every decision has both advantages and consequences. They ask questions in order to determine consequences of each choice. They pick not the shiniest solution but the least harmful consequences. The keepers of the consequences are the people—listen to them.

All the foregoing is predicated on our ability, in our democracy, to participate in the decision-making process. To have that ability removed is the worst possible outcome.

Content and Process

There are two parts to any decision: the content (what we are trying to accomplish) and the process (how we plan to do it). The crux of the matter is that Peter and I were writing about two entirely different aspects of the new laws. Peter was writing about content (i.e., what) and I was writing about process (i.e., how).

On the content, I wrote that the laws’ goals with respect to affordable housing and clean energy, were laudable, and I think Peter wrote the same. I am pretty sure we writers have an obligation to inform not sell. The voters, the people who will live with the advantages and the consequences, need to be informed about the tradeoffs, not sold a bill of goods.

With respect to content, we need some stuff—clean energy and housing—and we agree the government should step up and help provide it.

I think we agree that our local real estate market is seriously out of whack and that, perhaps, it can only be corrected if the government steps in.

I am not sure Peter and I agree on the process. Discrediting folks who take a position on the content is to me unacceptable. Thinking the Commonwealth should remove local control to speed completion of their goals, imagining the Commonwealth should remove our rights, is something with which I do not agree. I am at a loss to understand it if Peter supports loss of local control when he publishes weekly his ideas about controlling locally.

With respect to ADUs, here are the tradeoffs:

Municipalities may impose reasonable restrictions and requirements for:

    • Site-plan review;
    • Title V requirements;
    • Regulations concerning dimensional setbacks and the bulk of height of structures; or
    • Short-term rentals.

Municipalities cannot:

    • Require owner occupancy for the ADU or the principal dwelling;
    • Require a special permit or other discretionary zoning approval for the use or rental of an ADU;
    • Require more than one parking space for an ADU located outside of 0.5 miles from a commuter rail station, subway station, ferry terminal, or bus station; or
    • Require any parking for an ADU located within 0.5 miles from a commuter rail station, subway station, ferry terminal, or bus station.

I do not think my readers are recalcitrant children who must be bent to a superior will. For more than a century, local folks made decisions that created the open spaces, clean air, nature, and culture that make us so appealing. We did not anticipate or intend for it all to result in this overly expensive real estate market. We mourn the loss of community and economic diversity that was South County.

Let us agree, we all want to solve the problem. Let us consider that how we do it matters as much as how fast we do it. The worst part of the new process is that the Commonwealth mandated it and considered it acceptable to take away rights we formerly had.

Written by Peter J. Most

It was distressing for me to learn that it was suggested my column had been unkind or unfair to Carole Owens. The intent was to discredit an opinion, not an earnest person. One of my blind spots is the misperception that snark is not also wounding. Noted.

Carole and I agree on the substance but not the path to achieve the state’s laudable affordable housing and clean-energy goals. In the way that President Ronald Reagan referred to the MX missile as the “Peacekeeper,” I embrace the state’s recent housing and environmental legislation as the right amount of sledgehammer (municipalities being the anvil).

With greater historical perspective than I could ever hope to possess, Carole favors permitting towns to take measured, considered, and unforced approaches to policy. Carole’s point—a good one—is that towns will get there, just as they did with respect to open spaces, clean air, and clean water. The paramount point is that voters will not embrace anything shoved at them but will accept ideas when offered a meaningful opportunity to engage.

An obverse view, mine, is that South County towns should “Just Do It.”

Side by side, it is easy to see that Carole’s approach, in the long run, is the far better one, akin to the indisputable wisdom that it is better to teach a person to fish rather than to give a person a fish. On matters of clean energy and housing, mine is the Keynesian view that “[i]n the long run, we are all dead.”

As I see it, we are in a post-“let them come around” world. The “long run” is not relevant when the world is superheating. (I will confine the rest of my arguments to housing, as Los Angeles has said everything that needs to be said on clean energy.) This is not the time to hammer out the best housing policies; the “long run” is not relevant when we needed to construct yesterday the shelter we need today.

So, we have landed on the same spot as to the policy yet depart on the urgency. Carole would like to get a thoughtful analysis on ADUs and to consider other potentially more livable options. It is agreed that we should consider the long-term viability of ADUs as a housing solution, but, I say, let us start rolling out ADUs while we conduct that analysis. To the person currently out of housing options, an ADU may not be perfect, but it beats the alternative.

Carole states that she is at a loss to understand why I would oppose local control (which the recent legislation seizes) when I often argue in favor of local control. Both can be true. Should a town decide the number of liquor licenses and cannabis retailers within its borders? Of course. But when we have crossed the Rubicon, as we have on climate and housing, we are beyond debating who should captain the ship.

Carole, thank you for this opportunity to consider these issues together.

Survey Monkey Question

Here is a link to the following Survey Monkey poll: “Would you prefer towns move faster or slower in the implementation of the Commonwealth’s clean-energy and housing goals?”

Survey Monkey Results

Here is the result of the following recent survey question: “Should South County communities ease large-lot zoning rules to encourage housing development?

As of publication, 71.43 percent of respondents said “yes.”

Days Great Barrington has wrongfully withheld Community Access Fees: 318

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