Angus Jennings presented these slides at the December 7, 2007 Massachusetts Smart Growth / Smart Energy Conference in Worcester, MA, as a member of the “Smart Growth Toolkit” panel.

“Chapters 40R and 40S of the Massachusetts General Laws…” which together address smart-growth zoning… “have been in place for only a few months, but a dramatic change is evident in communities across the commonwealth. Zoning for higher-density housing, in the past highly adversarial, is now proceeding in a far more cooperative fashion. Our conversations with developers and local officials indicate that this new approach to housing development has begun to change the dynamics on the ground…”

“A proposal to build more than 600 housing units in an abandoned factory complex makes so much sense that it probably doesn’t require the incentives contained in the state smart growth program to gain the approval of Plymouth. But if the Town Meeting endorses a zoning change tomorrow, it will still be a landmark occasion one of the first major approvals under the state smart growth housing laws . . .”

“Talk long enough to anyone about the high cost of housing in Massachusetts and the conversation usually gets around to the same illustration of just how tough things have gotten: In more and more places, not just the priciest ones, police officers, teachers, and other mainstays of municipal life can no longer afford to buy a home in the communities they serve….”

“There has been a lot of noise coming from Beacon Hill, and business has much at stake. There are rival healthcare plans, and the question of who will pay. There is auto insurance reform, and the question of who will compete. Then there is the retroactive capital gains issue, and the question of why anyone should have to pay taxes four years later. . .”

November 15, 2005 Boston Globe: Unfinished Business