Harvard has had an affordable housing plan since 2005. It satisfied state mandates, calling for 182 affordable units to be produced over 10 years. Now it is time to update the plan, and after five years, only a small fraction of housing envisioned by the plan has come to pass. None of the key components forecast for the first five years has happened (development of town-owned gravel pit on Stow Road, mixed-use development in Ayer Road C district, senior housing project on town-owned Mass. Ave. land, and development of Devens Phase II).

The Affordable Housing Plan was completed in December 2004 and was accepted by the Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) in January 2005. The next update to the Affordable Housing Plan, mandated by DHCD, is due in January 2010. The previous plan was produced by the Harvard Housing Partnership; the update has been delegated to the Planning Board by the Board of Selectmen.

The primary purpose of the Affordable Housing Plan is to establish plans for meeting the state-mandated requirement (MGL Chapter 40B) that 10 percent of housing stock be affordable; otherwise developers can bypass local zoning with projects that include 25 percent affordable housing.

The 2004 plan was produced by the Harvard Housing Partnership, which consisted of Bonnie Heudorfer (chairwoman), Barbara Brady, Pamela Brown, David Hopper, Carolyn Ready, Ginger Quarles, Robert Piantedosi, and Lucy Wallace. The partnership is no longer active, all members having resigned in 2008. No replacement appointments have been made by the Board of Selectmen.

The League of Women Voters of Harvard and the Harvard Press are sponsoring a housing forum on Oct. 29 in Volunteers Hall, to help engage residents and to provide input to the update process. Planning Board Chairman Joe Sudol, who will be a panel member, said this week that the forum is “appropriate and valuable in the Planning Board’s current work in updating Harvard’s Affordable Housing Plan.”

The full text of the 2004 Affordable Housing Plan, along with a matrix of the production goals, is available at www.harvardpress.com.

This is the fourth article in a series of reviews of Harvard plans. This week we begin to look at the 2004 Affordable Housing Plan. Next week, we will look at the plan’s needs analysis, goals and strategies, production plans, and status. The full text of all plans reviewed is available at www.harvardpress.com, About Harvard, Harvard Wiki, Harvard by Design.