The fight to affirmatively further fair housing in Roxbury + Boston!
Join us Monday, September 18th, at 6:30 p.m. (in person) at Black Market in Nubian Square, 2136 Washington St., for a workshop on how we're using Obama-era fair housing zoning laws to advocate for affordable housing across Boston and in Roxbury.
REGISTER: [BIT.LY/affhroxbury]
BACKGROUND:
In 1968, President Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which made housing discrimination based on various factors illegal. In 2015, President Obama strengthened the act by introducing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, requiring Boston to amend its Zoning Code to consider historical discrimination impacts in residential projects, as part of a broader effort to advance equity and inclusion in the city. In 2020, Mayor Marty Walsh committed to advancing the work at a city level, despite President Trump pausing it federally.
City of Boston agencies have been engaged in a cross departmental effort to draft an Assessment of Fair Housing (AFH), as required by President Obama’s 2015 AFFH rule. Boston’s draft AFH identifies over 100 actions under 14 goals across city agencies, including amending the Boston Zoning Code to affirmatively further fair housing.
Reclaim Roxbury has been apart of a coalition of racial justice community groups that have partnered with the City of Boston to form the AFFH rules and process. We have been pushing to ensure AFFH is a useful tool, that effects change.
As part of the actions in the AFH, the City is amending the Boston Zoning Code to require residential projects or mixed-use projects with residential components undergoing Large Project Review and/or Planned Development Area Review under Article 80 with the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA) to consider impacts on area residents historically discriminated against so that steps can be taken to reduce those impacts, provide new housing opportunities, and address past histories of exclusion. The zoning amendment also includes the Accessibility Checklist, approved by the BPDA Board in June 2014 and updated in March 2017 and November 2019 and the Smart Utilities Checklist, approved by the BPDA Board in June 2018.
Developers will be required to complete the already approved Accessibility Checklist, and Smart Utilities Checklist, in addition to a new AFFH Assessment Tool, guided by a displacement analysis and historical exclusion data, which will be provided by the BPDA.
Despite these changes, we are concerned that AFFH is not being used more aggressively to shape developments, and that the requirements for AFFH are too low.
We see this playing out in Dorchester with the Dot Block project, where only 20% of the thousands of units will be available to those who make 70% of the AMI ($72,730 for a household of 1 and 103,880 for a household of 4). Learn more about the fight for Dot Block here: https://www.facebook.com/DotNot4Sale
Join us on Monday, 9/18, at 6:30 to learn more!
Where: 2136 Washington St, Boston, MA 02119, 6:30-8pm
Black Market Nubian Square (Dudley Square, across the street from the construction happening in front of the Haley House, where the parking lot used to be)
REGISTER: BIT.LY/affhroxbury
Here are some articles written about Boston’s changes:
Shelter force: https://shelterforce.org/2021/02/18/fair-housing-and-zoning-toward-a-new-boston/
City of Boston website:https://www.bostonplans.org/housing/affirmatively-furthering-fair-housing-article-80
Today: https://www.today.com/tmrw/what-obama-biden-affh-rule-why-did-trump-rescind-it-t188654
