As the high cost of housing started to squeeze families out of desirable suburbs 30 years ago, the state responded with a landmark law that became known by a pointed nickname–the “Anti-Snob-Zoning Act.”

The 1969 statute made it easier for developers to win local approval for affordable housing projects and asked every city and town, no matter how rich their residents, to do one thing: Expand their supply of subsidized housing for people with low and moderate incomes to 10 percent of their housing stock.

A full generation has passed since the law was enacted. The question today is just how snobby does Massachusetts remain?

Certainly there are many more housing developments for low- and moderate-income families than there were in the 1960s. But only 24 of the state’s 351 cities and towns have hit or surpassed the 10-percent mark, according to the most recent figures available from the Department of Housing and Community Development. That’s less than 7 percent of the communities in Massachusetts.

Fifty-six communities have no low- and moderate-income housing at all on the state’s “Subsidized Housing Inventory.” Another 50 have less than two percent.

Those that made the 10-percent list include the state’s largest cities, such as Boston, Cambridge, Lowell, New Bedford, Worcester, and Springfield, and several of the smaller cities. But only a few of the more affluent suburbs the law originally targeted have reached or exceeded 10 percent–Lincoln, Salem, and Beverly.

Figuring out what counts toward a community’s total can be complicated. The state includes only “permanent” affordable housing, meaning the units must have long-term restrictions on their use or re-sale to preserve their affordability. So market-rate apartments that low-income tenants rent with a federal Section 8 certificate, which pays part of their rent for them, do not show up in the state’s inventory, for example.

Generally speaking, a development is eligible if it has received a state or federal subsidy under any program to help construct or rehabilitate housing that is affordable to people who earn less than 80 percent of the area’s median income. “Affordable” typically means tenants pay 30 percent or less of their income on rent. (At least 25 percent of a development’s units must be affordable for it to qualify for the inventory. Also, the subsidies do not have to be financial. Under the state’s “Local Initiative Program,” technical assistance from the state also counts as a subsidy.)

Tom Callahan, executive director of the Massachusetts Affordable Housing Alliance, says many towns won’t make affordable housing a top priority unless the state takes the lead. “Right now it’s sort of a back-burner issue on the state level, so in many communities it becomes a back-burner issue there,” Callahan says. “It needs to be brought back to the front burner.”

But the state can’t force the issue under the law as it was written. In spite of widespread misunderstanding about the meaning of the 10-percent target, it is not a requirement; it is only a goal. The law has no enforcement mechanism.

The idea was to encourage cities and towns to get to 10 percent by giving those that do reach that point complete authority to deny affordable housing permits in the future. Any developer who is turned down in a community that is under the 10-percent mark can appeal the decision to the state’s three-member Housing Appeals Committee and “there is a presumption that there is a substantial housing need which outweighs local concerns,” according to the Department of Housing and Community Development.

Callahan says the state can–and should–“be a true partner” to help communities reach the 10-percent goal. But at some point, if a community is not showing any progress, he contends, the state needs to start imposing penalties, such as withholding or limiting state aid, to move things along.

Jane Wallis Gumble, director of the Department of Housing and Community Development, says the state is doing what it can to help develop affordable housing (See related story, p. 36). The fact that many communities still have little or no subsidized housing, despite the state goal, is a reflection of the fluctuating supply of public funding and the ups and downs of the real estate market.

But she added that it’s a “community-based concern” that needs to be addressed at the local level. Cities and towns that want a more diverse housing stock can solicit proposals for new developments. Gumble also pointed out that some communities already have “quite a bit” of housing that low- and moderate-income people can afford, without building subsidized units.

Werner Lohe Jr., chairman of the Housing Appeals Committee, says the anti-snob-zoning law has been a success. He notes that many suburban communities didn’t have any affordable housing before 1969. “In the first 10 years, towns saw this as a sword hanging over their head–they fought it tooth and nail,” Lohe said. Now most communities have at least some low- and moderate-income housing, which shows “that towns are beginning to understand the need.”

Indeed, the state’s figures show that the supply continues to increase. About 160 communities added subsidized units between the 1993 survey and the most recent count, done in 1997, for a total of 9,339 new units. While some cities and towns added just a few units, many added several dozen to several hundred. The state now has about 203,260 units in its subsidized housing inventory, which amounts to about 8.5 percent of the total year-round housing stock.

Of course in many communities the battles rage on. In Sherborn, one of Boston’s most affluent suburbs (where the 1996 median sale price for a home was $392,000), there is still no subsidized housing for low- or moderate-income families. But town officials have been trying to put something together for almost 10 years, according to Susan Adler, a former town administrator.

In September, plans were under way for a farmstead-style condominium development of 10 “affordable” units and seven market-rate units on 17 acres of town-owned land off South Main Street. Each affordable unit is to sell for under $100,000, “which in Sherborn is just remarkable,” Adler said.

But between major cost overruns and other problems, the town is not eager to start work on another development, added Adler, who was shepherding the housing project until groundbreaking. The two biggest obstacles to future development are the lack of additional town-owned land and the lack of public water and sewer systems, she said.

“Our experience has been that it’s extraordinarily difficult and expensive to do [affordable] housing when you don’t have access to public water and sewer…. Permitting is monumental and extremely costly, and it makes it very hard to end up with an affordable project,” she said. “I see this being an enormous challenge for the future of any further efforts.”