Rockport’s inner harbor showing lobster fleet and Motif #1 (red building), one of the most painted buildings in America.
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
Just how hard it is to build more housing (except for mansions and McMansions) in New England can be seen in Rockport, Mass., the affluent town on the tip of Cape Ann. It’s both a Boston suburb and a summer-resort town, with many second homes.
There, a bunch of Nimbys seek to block a state plan to put multi-family housing near the town’s train station. The project is aimed at slowing soaring housing costs by increasing supply and getting more people out of their cars and into environmentally friendly public transit.
Rockport, with its famous ‘’quaint’’ harbor (“Motif #1, beloved by Sunday painters!), is a major tourist destination but the people who work in its restaurants, inns and bars increasingly can’t afford to live there. This has helped to cause severe labor problems in the local and heavily taxpaying hospitality sector – leading to shortened hours and outright closures.
This sort of opposition has cropped up in other rich towns, such as Newton. The Rockport project is driven by the new rules of the administration of outgoing Republican Gov. Charlie Baker aimed at increasing multi-family housing, especially for low-income people, in the 175 cities and towns served by the MBTA.
I hope that the commonwealth continues to enforce these rules. If not, Massachusetts, like the other New England states, will lose many more jobs to the South and West where more, and more affordable, housing is available. It’s a social and economic imperative for our region to build much more housing.
Swimmers’ delight: Babson Farm granite quarry, at Halibut Point State Park, in Rockport.
