The new Affordable Homes Act revised Section 22 of Chapter 40B, part of the comprehensive permit law, to require the Housing Appeals Committee to notify the Secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) of any extensions or failure to meet the deadlines set forth in Section 22 and the reason for the delay.  The deadlines in Section 22 require that the Housing Appeals Committee hear appeals within twenty days after receiving the applicant’s statement and that it issue a decision within thirty days after the hearing concludes, unless the time has been extended by mutual agreement between the applicant and the Housing Appeals Committee. Additionally, the Secretary of EOHLC is now required to annually report to the Governor and the Joint Committee on Housing summaries of delays in adjudicating appeals to the Housing Appeals Committee for comprehensive permit projects including (i) deadlines missed for each appeal; (ii) the reason for the delay; (iii) the total number of days from the date the applicant submitted a statement of prior proceedings to the issuance of a written decision or the projected number of days to the decision; and (iv) the board that issued the denial or conditions subject to appeal.

The Affordable Homes Act added a new Section, 18, to Chapter 40A. Section 18 allows a municipality whose zoning by-law contains an inclusionary zoning requirement or that has a housing production plan to enter into an agreement with a housing developer or residential development owner to provide an affordable housing preference to low- or moderate-income veterans for up to 10 percent of the affordable units in a development. The new statute stipulates that an affordable housing preference for veteran’s agreement will not affect the municipality’s ability to include those units on the Subsidized Housing Inventory maintained by EOHLC.