Bill > S620

This bill amends Chapter 40B of the General Laws, which governs affordable housing requirements for cities and towns, by introducing a new definition for "adjunct apartment housing," defined as a separate living unit with its own sleeping, cooking, and sanitary facilities that is part of a single-family home. It then modifies the criteria for determining if housing requirements are consistent with "local needs," which is a legal standard that allows cities and towns to deviate from certain affordable housing mandates if they can demonstrate that meeting them would be overly burdensome. The bill specifies that these requirements are considered consistent with local needs if a certain percentage of existing low or moderate-income housing, including adjunct apartments, already exists, or if the proposed construction would exceed specific thresholds of land area or acreage within a calendar year, while also excluding land owned by government entities from these calculations. Finally, the bill adds a provision to Chapter 59 of the General Laws that allows cities and towns to offer property tax exemptions for the increased value of a home due to alterations made to create an adjunct apartment that qualifies as low or moderate-income housing, with these exemptions terminating if the unit no longer meets the affordable housing criteria and can be adopted by a municipality for a term not exceeding 15 years.