House, Senate rush bills to meet midnight deadline

BOSTON—A bill overhauling the state’s 30-year-old affordable housing law is on acting Gov. Jane Swift’s desk.

The measure won final approval in the House and Senate on Wednesday despite opposition from suburban lawmakers who argued the changes didn’t go far enough.

The bill was one of many that lawmakers were trying to rush through before the end of the Legislature’s formal session at midnight, while allowing hundreds more to perish. The bill would change the state’s so-called “anti-snob zoning” law to allow cities and towns to rebuff developers seeking to build large housing complexes in violation of local zoning codes.

The law now allows developers to skirt local zoning in towns that have less than 10 percent affordable housing as long as the developer agrees to set aside some units for low and moderate income families.

Under the bill, communities that agree to gradually increase their stock of affordable housing could once again block developers.

A spokesman for Swift said she will review the bill before deciding whether to sign it.

Lawmakers also sent a bill to Swift’s desk that would allow the state to borrow up to $508 million for public housing developments.

A bill to make sweeping changes to the state’s bilingual education program hit a snag when Swift sent it back to lawmakers with recommended changes.

The bill would allow schools to choose from a range of bilingual education options. It is in part an attempt to quash support for a ballot question that would replace bilingual education with a one-year program to immerse students in English.

Swift said lawmakers should kill a section requiring school districts with more than 50 students in a single non-English language group to have at least two different kinds of bilingual education programs.

Swift said lawmakers should let schools decide if they need more than one bilingual program.

“I’m giving them one more chance to improve on the current system,” Swift said.

Swift also vetoed a bill that would allow Fall River officials to rip down a 100-unit public housing project and scatter the tenants in low-income apartments across the city.

Swift cited the state’s rising housing prices and concerns that affordable housing would be lost. She sent the bill back to lawmakers, who were deciding whether to vote to override the veto.

The bill did not garner the needed two-thirds majority to override a veto during its initial approval in the House and Senate.

Wednesday is the last day of the legislature’s formal session. Typically any controversial bills must be voted on before the end of the formal session.

The House and Senate were expected to take action on bills that would allow the state to borrow money for environmental and transportation projects.

Hundreds of other bills appear destined to go nowhere.

They include proposals to revamp the state’s criminal sentencing guidelines and to ease existing restrictions on gun licenses, both of which were approved by the House, but stalled in the Senate.

Many bills approved by the Senate also appeared stranded, including a bill to require cigarette manufacturers to produce “fire safe” cigarettes and a bill to provide benefits for domestic partners of public employees.



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