Preservation
We don’t have to preserve everything. Ask: what makes one place uniquely, and distinctly, that place? Let’s preserve that.
One mistake we make is that we call it preserving the past. Truth is, as we consider the many development proposals — DeSisto, Elm Court, Glendale Middle Road, a new school — we are engaged in preserving our future. What Berkshire will be in twenty years is based on what we decide to build or tear down, allow or disallow, now. What are the possibilities and most important, what are the tradeoffs?
Progress and preservation, land use and land conservation are simultaneously cross-supportive and at odds. If we accept that change is inevitable and at the same time acknowledge that preservation and conservation are parts of sound planning, we do not have a solution; we have merely defined the problem. If change is inevitable, how do we preserve? If preservation is desirable, how do we progress?
Affordable Housing
Stockbridge always had affordable housing, and expensive housing; we had a bell curve of housing. Now the median price of a house in Stockbridge is $700,000. Building in Stockbridge is estimated at more than $500/sq. ft. So, what happened? Lots of things.
Land use is a trade-off. Preserving open space decreases the amount of land available and therefore causes the price of land to rise. If land is more expensive, keeping moderate-priced housing available or building affordable housing is more difficult. Some of us support both land conservation and affordable housing without realizing the contradiction.
Some proponents of affordable housing are, at the same time, opposed to cluster housing and high-rise buildings without realizing that this combination makes housing unaffordable to all but the privileged few. The contradiction is not in the minds of the people but in the complex and interdependent aspects of the problem.
Let’s talk historic preservation. Preserving historic buildings adds to the beauty and charm of a place, and in Stockbridge, it is part of our economic base. Historic preservation is more than a source of communal pride, it attracts tourist dollars. Many of us are passionate preservationists without realizing that every historic structure saved and organized as a 501c3 removes it from the tax rolls and takes large swathes of land off the market. That combination of lower taxes and higher land cost directly impacts affordable housing production.
That doesn’t tell us where our affordable housing went. Folks came in and bought it. Small unprepossessing cabins on the lake, small and well-worn houses on busier streets, were purchased, torn down, and replaced with grander houses. We learned we cannot control the cost of a house, and we learned no homeowner wants us to. Long-time residents in Stockbridge watch their home prices reach dizzying heights and see their retirement funds grow.
We are here now, and the government has to artificially produce affordable housing — with subsidies. Subsidizing housing comes from taxes. Housing is produced or sold as affordable which means the taxpayer pays the difference between market price and affordability. It is unsustainable. Who can pay enough to reinflate a bell curve of housing? Moreover, there is an irony in taxes subsidizing housing. Higher real estate taxes can create a whole new group of house-poor, or worse, homeless.
Okay, let’s build cheaper. Building up is cheaper than building out — attached dwellings are cheaper. Oh, but wait, that increases density which also raises municipal costs paid by taxes. What is the tradeoff — affordable housing swapped for crippling taxes and a sign that reads “densely populated” near the “Welcome to Stockbridge” sign?
What can the government do? It can control the cost of running the household but that means lowering utility bills, and oh yeah, lowering taxes.
Every decision the community makes about historic preservation, land conservation, allowable density, provide housing and destroy animal habitat, every single one opens one door as it closes another. As we choose, we form our future.
