WALTHAM OPEN SPACE PLAN SERIES

How does affordable housing fail to happen for so long in a city where voters support it? The answers are hidden in long and convoluted series of meetings which can be difficult for the public to follow.

This means homelessness and high rents in Waltham are choices made by our leaders, even after we raise our own taxes to address them. But since then, Waltham has only spent a small portion of its community preservation funds on housing, and has not spent a single dollar on projects that would create new units of affordable housing. Those funds come from a small surcharge on property taxes that Waltham voters approved in 2005, largely because of concerns about affordable housing. It’s tempting to see this kind of problem as unavoidable- if our government tried to guarantee affordable homes for everyone, it would be prohibitively expensive and cause our taxes to skyrocket, right? But in fact, Waltham has millions of dollars in community preservation funds that could be used to create new affordable housing with matching funds from the state, but has chosen to spend it on other things, or not to spend it at all. The number of unhoused people in Waltham has been growing since the beginning of the pandemic and economic downturn, and so has the number of low-income as well as middle-income people struggling to pay rent. The popular project is now in bureaucratic limbo and it is unclear when or if it will move forward. According to the mayor, Metro West CD was missing required documents in their application, but it is not clear whether it is possible for them to obtain those documents, or why they are necessary.

Waltham has millions of dollars in community preservation funds that could be used to create new affordable housing with matching funds from the state, but has chosen to spend it on other things, or not to spend it at all.īut after over an hour of contentious and confusing discussion of procedural issues, the committee voted to send the matter back to the CPC, essentially restarting the approval process from step one. Councilor Patrick O’Brien said “I don’t want anyone in the community to think that this council is killing affordable housing.” The mayor was present and stated several times that she supports affordable housing at the Armory. City councilors seemed to be aware that the Armory project, and affordable housing in general, have popular support in Waltham. 1, the project went before the Waltham’s City Council’s Committee of the Whole. Waltham’s Community Preservation Committee voted to approve the idea last November, and over 2,000 people have signed a petition in support. In a previous post we featured an exciting plan by two local non-profits, WATCH CDC and Metro West CD, to turn the vacant, historic Waltham Armory building into affordable rental housing. The story of the Armory proposal sheds light on the undemocratic patterns of behavior that prevent affordable housing projects from happening in Waltham despite popular support and available funds.

Waltham open space plan