The realization came to me as I was lying in the dentist's chair, getting my teeth cleaned: some of the most expensive houses in Amherst sit right below our old land fill, overlooking a good-sized medical office building and parking lot. Another neighbor is a development of relatively modestly-priced condominiums.
It goes to show what a great view in a desirable town will allow people to overlook.
In the past year or so I've heard comments that Amherst's lack of affordable housing is caused by our abundance of conservation land. I disagree.
It's the market.
We should define what we mean by "affordable housing." Do we mean rental housing for people with low incomes? Housing that first-time homebuyers can afford (with or without financial assistance of some kind)? Housing that people who live in small houses or condominiums can move into when their families get bigger? Places that people who work in town can afford to live in? Or is this lament really code for not wanting our town to be "gentrified"?
Whatever your definition, these problems are not limited to Amherst. Housing is very expensive every place in Massachusetts that has jobs and good schools. Housing prices in many part of the state have gotten so high that business leaders say it affects economic growth: businesses are having trouble recruiting new employees to move to Massachusetts. The Romney administration has implemented a number of programs and strategies they hope will increase the supply of housing. (I disagree with their characterization of their efforts as "smart growth," but that's because they are not making similar efforts on the other side of the equation, to protect land that should be protected.)
Amherst and its neighbors are part of this same housing market. I've seen real estate ads for places in Wendell that are supposedly "2 hours to Cambridge." Scary – both for what that does to our housing market and for other drivers on Route 2. Having a well-deserved reputation for our schools and other public services, as well as for arts, restaurants and other contributors to quality of life, the "Happy Valley" can't expect to live in isolation. The region has been attracting people who can pay large amounts for housing, who bid up the price on anything they find attractive to build on, live in, or replace. Amherst is approaching "build-out," at least as far as first-house-on-the-land goes; and we've seen some "tear downs." Our partners in the regional school district have more open land (very little of it protected) but most of it is hard to build on. At the same time, most of the programs that were created to assist the less affluent have ended or been severely cut back. There are fewer subsidized apartments and vouchers for people with low incomes to rent, but there are not fewer families that need them. Over the years, Amherst has participated in state and federal programs to develop lower- cost housing, and to keep at least some of that housing "affordable." I'm pleased that people are working to create a Housing Trust Fund.
It is true that purchase both of land for conservation and of development rights for farmland preservation have removed some land from the possibility of housing construction. In fact, many parcels have been protected, with energetic support from the neighbors, specifically to prevent them from being built on. But it doesn't follow that had houses been built that they would have been "affordable" by any of the standards I listed above.
The market for large houses is too good. Secondly, neighbors often object strenuously to any form of housing that is more dense (and costs less) than their own. People fear it will lower their property values. In most cases one can build large houses on subdivision lots with very little hassle; to do anything else requires a Special Permit, and a lot of hassle. So why bother?
The result is that, collectively, we are gobbling up land and a rapid rate, even though our population has increased very little (the Census Bureau estimates that Hampshire County's population grew by slightly over 1% between 2000 and 2004). We are wasting our most precious resources with sprawling development and increasing traffic in an economy that provides fewer good-paying jobs and makes it impossible for more and more people to find a place to live. We need to focus our minds and energies on how to reverse these trends before we find we have stumbled into the future none of us wanted.