A while ago I sought some help with back pain that I reasonably thought was a back problem. I stretched, iced, heated and otherwise babied my back to no great effect. Once in the care of someone knowledgeable, I came to learn that my back pain originated from a tightness in my hip. The solution was working on the source of the pain, not where I felt it. The point of this is that solving problems is contingent on a proper diagnosis of the origins of the problem. A misdiagnosis leads to solutions and strategies misaligned with the root causes of a problem.
This brings me to the ongoing discussion about exempting certain types of housing development from environmental review. Here in Massachusetts, some limitations to the applicability of environmental review have already been implemented, while others—designed to prevent or discourage local conservation and wastewater rules from exceeding state minimum standards—remain under consideration. Regardless of what ultimately becomes law in 2026, there is a clear momentum to inoculate housing development from the same rigorous and protective environmental standards applicable to all other major development projects.
The prevailing narrative behind this effort is that one of the major factors that impedes efforts to increase the stock of affordable housing is overly restrictive environmental reviews, including local bylaws and regulations specific to wetlands protection and septic management. With that (mis)diagnosis, the cure has been to chip away at environmental standards that protect the critical natural resources that sustain our quality of life and protect our air, land and water.
Like many urban legends, the presumption that environmental regulation is a root cause of the distorted housing market remains largely unchallenged. The danger is that, at least here on Cape Cod, the evidence is scant that the housing market is impeded by regulations that limit excess nutrient loading from further degrading our water resources, prevent untreated stormwater from exacerbating flooding and water quality concerns, and prevent the avoidable loss of sensitive lands that support our drinking water quality and critical habitats. The facts are that by directing development away from our most sensitive remaining lands, these environmental standards actually lower public costs needed to mitigate these environmental harms that come from poorly sited and implemented development.
Currently, we are all participants in an experiment that is attempting to solve the worthy issue of housing affordability based on a misdiagnosis of the root causes of the problem. There will be many outcomes from this experiment, but two are obvious because the solutions are misaligned with the causes of the problem. The first is that real environmental degradation will result from the limitation of the applicability of certain environmental standards. The second is that a shortage of affordable housing will persist.
We need to step back and challenge some presumed truths to come up with better answers that allow us to address real housing needs while retaining the environmental standards upon which our collective future relies.
