Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | June 27, 2022 | Worcester Business Journal 17 Actually affordable Taking his experience in helping a smaller town find ways to encourage affordable housing, Jeffrey Gordon, chairman of the Woodstock Planning & Zoning Commission in Connecticut, who hails from Worcester originally, makes a distinction between housing that is actually affordable and housing affordable according to a state formula. Getting to actually affordable, through having more housing avail- able, is an ideal, he said. And, like Mi- kula, Gordon believes if IZ is to help, it should include meaningful incentives for developers. Providing more flexibility in how land can be used can help a developer be more creative in including afford- able components but also ensuring sufficient profit to make a project worthwhile. And, Gordon said, maybe the market can be encouraged to deliv- er even more. "If a developer decides to go beyond the amount of affordable housing they are required to do -- maybe, 50% or 100% more -- give them addition- al incentives that will en- courage them to do that," said Gordon. "Something like that could really work in a city like Worcester." For Bradley, of course, building more is critical, but she sees the idea of inclusionary – building communi- ties that are inherently economically diverse – as in itself, an important goal. "What we'd like to see is that folks who are working in our community can live in our community, too," she said. A R C H I T E C T U R E & C O N S T R U C T I O N F O C U S Window of Opportunity? We Can Make Everything Clear. Commercial real estate acquisition and development can be complicated. It takes a certain vision to see all the possibilities, and to anticipate any quandaries. At Fletcher Tilton, our experience and expertise provide the clarity you need so you'll be ready when that next window of opportunity opens up. Real Knowledge in Real Estate FletcherTilton.com WO RC E ST E R | F R A M I N G H A M | B OSTO N C A P E CO D | P ROV I D E N C E COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE | ACQUISITION SALE | FINANCING | LEASING | PERMITTING ZONING | CONDOMINIUMS Mark Donahue 508.459.8029 Todd Brodeur 508.459.8038 planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design in Cambridge and research assis- tant at Boston public policy researcher Pioneer Institute. "It's more likely that IZ has some harmful effects when it's mandatory and ultimately restrictive, but IZ can also be voluntary," said Mikula. Some forms of IZ merely encourage developers to set aside units as afford- able with density bonuses and other incentives they weren't able to take advantage of before. A good example, he said, is Massachusetts Chapter 40B, which adds flexibility to the housing market because it gives developers the ability to bypass local zoning codes, with the catch being they have to make their projects 20-25% affordable. "ere's a very active debate in the academic literature on the long-term supply effects of IZ," Mikula said. e theoretical long-term supply reductions suggested by IZ critics fail to materialize, Mikula said, but IZ does drive up the price of market-rate housing, presumably because developers pass along the costs of making affordable units to the other tenants. "Also, unsurprisingly, IZ usually only produces a substantial number of af- fordable units if it is mandatory, as most density bonuses and other regulatory incentives don't negate the costs of af- fordable units for the developer," he said. Mandatory & voluntary inclusionary zoning, in New England The majority of inclusionary zoning programs enacted by local governments in the region are mandatory for developers. Mandatory inclusionary Voluntary inclusionary State zoning programs zoning programs Massachusetts 105 36 Connecticut 17 9 New Hampshire 2 17 Rhode Island 10 0 Vermont 2 0 Maine 1 0 TOTAL 137 62 Source: Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University Jeffrey Gordon, chairman of the Woodstock, Conn. zoning commission The nonprofit Worcester Common Ground built this affordable housing complex on Chandler Street in Worcester. W

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