Letters to the Editor
How to look beyond 40B?

To the Editor:

I have read the commentary from the opponents of the 40B law in the opinion page over the last month with great interest. There are issues that both sides seem to agree upon 40B has been a failure and we are currently in the 49th percentile as a state in providing affordable housing opportunities to our citizens and their families.

In all the commentary for the opponents of 40B the theme that seems to be the most important has nothing to do to providing affordable housing opportunities or finding a way to work towards finding a workable solution. It is clear in statements such as "burden to the targeted communities," "bad for the environment," and "bad for the town's character." What are not apparent within these opinions are any suggestions for solutions to resolve the issue of housing affordability that neither the state nor 40B have been able to resolve to date.

Since 2000 the strongest job and population growth in the country has been in Houston, Dallas, Charlotte and Raleigh-Durham while traditional favorites for young singles such as Boston, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco have experienced below average job and population growth.

We as a state need to realize married couples with families tend to be the most successful and motivated individuals in society and make the economies of a region grow. They are twice as likely to be in the top 20 percent of income earners, according to the census and their incomes rise faster then the national average. It would seem that these individuals are the target group we would want living within our communities. Both private and public organizations need to work in harmony to streamline the development process while trying to balance the needs of the state and local communities.

As I stated in my last letter the largest issue facing the state of Massachusetts is that it is a Commonwealth. 351 communities have 351 different opinions of what their individual communities should be, how development needs to be approved, how to protect its environment, how many houses a year will be built and on how much land. This can not continue as a separate process within individual communities it needs to be a state mandate with the resources of the entire state working to achieve long term solutions.

The issue is not that 40B needs to be repealed since the way it is current configured it will never achieve its intended goal, do we as a community wish to continue down the path of a state with a declining population and spiraling higher costs to live here or will we make the decision any organization needs to make when the customers we wish to attract are making another buying decision and purchasing and moving elsewhere.

Vote as you will in regard to the question of 40B the issue is not that it has succeeded or failed it is what do we do next.

Geoffrey Evancic

Ashburnham