Our View: A Missed Opportunity

 If local communities are going to make headway against the current housing crisis, officials need to be more aggressive, especially when it comes to fulfilling a goal most towns seem to have: locating affordable housing at scattered sites rather than concentrated in large developments. 

 A perfect example is on display immediately next door to The Chronicle’s offices. For the past few months, our staff has watched as a new 5,800-square-foot, three-bedroom, seven-bathroom house is being constructed on a 19,266-square-foot lot sandwiched between Munson Meeting and the Compass Real Estate office. The lot was sold to a local developer last September for $460,000; the house is being marketed for $4,499,900.

 The developer was granted a special permit to build the house by the zoning board of appeals, necessary because the land is in a commercial zoning district, where single-family homes are not allowed by right. With residential use currently much more valuable than business property, more and more homes are being built on land that zoning originally envisioned as commercial; three more are planned farther down Crowell Road.

 The problem is that small lots like this, located near village centers, are perfect for scattered affordable housing. Had town officials and the affordable housing trust board been paying attention, they could have swooped in and purchased this lot (the trust currently has several millions of dollars at its disposal from various sources that don’t contribute to higher property taxes) and built several units of affordable housing, perhaps as many as four, either as rentals or to provide local families with homeownership opportunities. This would be the perfect spot for a small condo development, which would fit into the neighborhood better than the McMansion currently under construction.

 Towns like Chatham need to up their game in terms of keeping an eye out for these opportunities. And they should not be rejected because the price is too high — the profit-driven private sector isn’t going to do it, but the town, which is in the business of helping its citizens and not making money, can.