Report Publish Date: May 13, 2024
This journal article looks at the impact of Chapter 40B, a Massachusetts policy that aims to get around restrictive zoning practices and make it easier for people from low- and moderate-income households to move into higher-income neighborhoods that offer more social mobility.
The researchers “find clear evidence that such policies build affordable housing in neighborhoods with strikingly greater opportunities for social mobility than are otherwise available to low- and moderate-income households.”
They found that affordable units created because of 40B:
People who benefit from federal housing programs tend to be segregated in high poverty neighborhoods. Housing Choice Voucher programs are one example of efforts to open different types of neighborhoods to people with lower income levels. But communities have often limited vouchers’ efficacy through exclusionary practices that keep housing unaffordable.
In a few states, fair share policies aim to make affordable housing available across municipalities by requiring municipalities to have a minimum percentage of their housing be designated affordable. If municipalities don’t meet the minimum, developers can build affordable housing without meeting local zoning rules.
The researchers wanted to know what kinds of neighborhoods have become available to low-income households because of fair share policies.
The researchers asked how neighborhoods with affordable housing because of 40B differed from other Massachusetts neighborhoods, how the features of the program affect the types of neighborhoods where the affordable housing is located, and whether affordable 40B housing is built in “less desirable” parts of neighborhoods.
The researchers were able to determine the types of neighborhoods that beneficiaries of 40B could move into by using the Massachusetts Subsidized Housing Inventory to create a dataset of addresses of 40B units.
“[O]ur results highlight the potential of fair share policies that bypass exclusionary zoning to successfully distribute affordable housing throughout those communities that have traditionally resisted it.”
—Noémie Sportiche, Mathematica Policy Research and Harvard University; Hector Blanco, Rutgers University; Madeleine I. G. Daepp and David Cutler, Harvard University; Erin Graves, Tufts University
Fair share housing policies may be a good solution for expanding neighborhood choice for low- and moderate-income families, as a complement to other housing policies.
$249,267
Awarded on: 11/23/2020
Timeframe: 2020-2025
Grant number: 78165
Location: Cambridge, MA
Opening neighborhoods that offer greater opportunities for social mobility to low- and moderate-income households remains a challenge in the United States. Exclusionary zoning practices act as a barrier to current efforts by restricting the supply of affordable housing. In this paper, we examine whether fair share policies that seek to bypass these restrictive zoning practices offer one potential solution. Focusing on Massachusetts Chapter 40B, we find clear evidence that such policies build affordable housing in neighborhoods with strikingly greater opportunities for social mobility than are otherwise available to low- and moderate-income households. Leveraging novel data on 40B development addresses linked to a wide range of public and administrative records, we find that 40B produces affordable units in neighborhoods with greater economic mobility, higher performing schools, greater social capital, less pollution, better health outcomes, and lower incarceration rates than both the typical neighborhood in Massachusetts and those available to beneficiaries of the state’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, Housing Choice Voucher, and public housing programs. Consistent with previous research on policies that have segregated affordable housing and opportunity, we also find that neighborhoods with affordable 40B units are whiter and more affluent than average. An examination of underlying policy mechanisms suggests that 40B’s ability to bypass exclusionary zoning plays a central role in explaining differences in neighborhood characteristics between 40B and other programs. We further find little evidence to support concerns that 40B’s zoning override leads to affordable 40B units being built in the least advantaged areas of municipalities, in polluted zones, or near highways, though a non-trivial share of units are located in industrial zones. These results suggest that policies like 40B may be valuable complements to other major housing programs in the United States.
Housing Policy Debate, 35:2, 210-242, DOI: 10.1080/10511482.2024.2320131
This study and journal article were conducted and created by the following people:
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