Friday, March 20, 2020

SUMMARY OF SHERBORN’S CURRENT 40B STATUS




The previous post described the three 40B projects that are currently under construction in Sherborn. Upon completion, they will produce a total of 92 housing units, of which 23 (25%) will be affordable and will be added to Sherborn’s Subsidized Housing Inventory (SHI).

So, how does that impact our 40B status? Sherborn currently has 34 affordable units on the SHI. These include 24 units from Woodhaven (6 affordable but they are all rentals so all units count) and 10 from Leland Farms (Leland Farms also has 7 market rate units). These 34 units bring our SHI percentage to 2.3%.

The total number of housing units that the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) uses as a base (denominator) for calculating the percentage of affordable units is 1479. This figure is from the 2010 U.S. Census. While more housing has been built in Sherborn since 2010,  DHCD only adjusts the base every ten years with each U.S. Census.

If the projects under construction were all completed, the 23 affordable units added to the 34 we already have would bring our SHI total to 57 units and the percentage would increase to 3.85%. In order to reach 10%, we need to reach a total of 148 units. We would be short 91 units. Furthermore, since its 2020, it’s a U.S. Census year and our denominator is about to be adjusted upward. It takes about a year for the initial U.S. Census population and housing figures to be released. While we will not know the exact figure until then, I estimate that our new number will be about 1550 (possibly less).

Using 1550, we would need 8 more units (156 total) to reach 10%. Thus, we would be 99 short, even with all of the current projects completed and occupied.

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