to view the Affordable Housing Plan - Town of North Andover

equired to meet the needs identified in the housing needs assessment, and it suggests strategies for
promoting housing development to meet those needs.
The Affordable Housing and Planned Production Plan is required to meet the requirements of the
Department of Housing & Community Development’s (DHCD) Planned Production provision of
Chapter 40B Section 31.07 (i). Chapter 40B of the Massachusetts General Laws is a law enacted by
the Massachusetts Legislature in 1969 to promote affordable housing development. It is sometimes
referred to as the anti-snob law or the comprehensive permit law. Chapter 40B grants developers
the right to override a community’s zoning regulations provided certain conditions are met. Those
conditions include devoting a specified percentage of the project to affordable units and accepting a
profit cap of up to 20%. However, if a community has a DHCD approved Planned Production
Plan, and if affordable units are developed at the rate specified in the plan, the community can earn
an exemption from the provisions of Chapter 40B for a specified period of time.
II B - PREVIOUS PLANNING EFFORTS IN NORTH ANDOVER
The Affordable Housing and Planned Production Plan builds upon, and is a direct outgrowth of,
two previous plans, the 2000 Master Plan and the 2004 EO 418 Community Development Plan.
Master Plan
In 1997, North Andover initiated an effort to update its Master Plan. This effort culminated with a
Master Plan that was issued in April 2000, and adopted the following month at Town Meeting.
As part of the overall master planning effort, small neighborhood meetings were organized to solicit
information from interested citizens about their concerns for future town development. In addition,
a phone survey was conducted of citizens chosen at random to further sample citizen attitudes and
desires. Based on that public input, the Master Plan Committee adopted a mission statement that
said, in part, “our Town must plan for and direct change that:
• Preserves our rural, New England character, and
• Maintains our traditional diversity.” [Page 2 of Master Plan]
North Andover has evolved from a farming community to a manufacturing community to an
economically developed suburban community. That evolution is reflected in the variety of housing
styles that can be found in throughout the landscape. The stately homes around the Old Center and
the lake, the old farm houses in the Outcountry, and the small one and two-family homes in and
around the downtown area are all testaments to this evolution. The growth of traditional
subdivisions of single-family homes and the incipient demolition of older housing stock, which has
been replaced by larger, more modern homes in some areas, are threats to this diversity.
Furthermore, new-home construction is displacing open space at an alarming rate. The Master Plan
was based on the premise that preserving the rural character and housing diversity is important to
the citizens of North Andover.
The Master Plan pointed out that the focus had to be on managing residential development, not
stopping growth. New housing stock is going to be built and to prevent it is neither feasible nor
North Andover Affordable Housing Plan
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