The continued fight over the proposed Brierneck Crossing condominium project once again turns the spotlight on one of our state's most flawed and abused development laws, known as Chapter 40B.
So we can only hope that Judge Thomas Murtaugh, now considering the case understandably made by the city of Gloucester against the project last week, will render a decision that pushes state lawmakers to finally reform a measure that may have been well-intended, but has never worked as it should.
From a practical standpoint, the city is fighting the state Housing Appeals Committee's decision to allow developer James Grifoni to essentially run roughshod over Gloucester zoning regulations and build a 12-unit condo complex on an acre of filled-in salt marsh across Thatcher Road from Good Harbor Beach.
How could such a thing get this far? Well, Chapter 40B grants special concessions and subsidies to developers whose projects include 25 percent of their units as "affordable housing," and are pegged for a city or town whose percentage of affordable housing stock is less than 10 percent. That's the case with Gloucester, and the Brierneck project would include four "affordable" units, certified under a variety of market factors.
Chapter 40B may have been designed as a means to boost the amount of affordable housing. But it's also used by savvy, profiteering developers as a means to push through proposals that could never get local approval — and this one didn't. Gloucester's Zoning Board of Appeals rejected the plan in 2004, but Grifoni then won his tentative approval on the state level.
City officials are right to keep up this fight. Now, let's hope Judge Murtaugh delivers a ruling that will make lawmakers truly see the light.
