Voters have spoken. For the most part, the vote in Harvard was a microcosm of voting statewide. The one exception was Question 2. Voters statewide chose to keep the affordable housing law (Chapter 40B), while a significant Harvard majority would have repealed it. What does this mean? Do Harvard voters feel housing needs can be met without 40B, or do they want Harvard to continue limiting the diversity of housing that previous housing plans have called for?

Harvard’s leaders and planners need to find out. A Master Plan update is just around the corner. Previous updates have sometimes begun with a community survey to find out what residents need and want. This update should start with a comprehensive analysis of housing needs—diversity (rental, small single family, perhaps assisted living) as well as affordability. What kind of housing needs to be produced to support current and future Harvard residents?

By way of the latest Harvard housing plan accepted by the state earlier this year—the first step of which is completion of the 42 units of affordable senior rental housing scheduled for construction on Ayer Road—Harvard is on track to earn a two-year moratorium on new 40B projects. Let’s use that time to reassess Harvard’s housing needs. Past affordable housing plans—for example the 2004 affordable housing plan—have shown that needs-based planning for housing can have the happy coincidence of simultaneously fulfilling the town’s Chapter 40B affordable housing requirements.