Many issues are under discussion as a result of these proposed zoning Articles. Issues include: housing affordability, the diversity of housing and incomes in Arlington, environmental concerns and sustainability, tax burdens or tax savings potentially resulting from growth, the risk of postponing the decisions, and the image of Arlington as a community that values diversity and equitability. This one page “fact sheet” attempts to address many of these issues and concerns.
Related articles
A recently constructed project with 44 units of affordable housing shares a footprint with a new public library in this Chicago neighborhood. The Mayor and the Housing Authority initiated a competition for proposals from architecture firms to build projects that feature the “co-location” of uses, “shared spaces that bring communities together”, according to a recent article by Josephine Minutillo in ARCHITECTURAL RECORD (October 2019).
This project is an excellent example of how a municipal policy (increasing affordable housing) can drive creativity to meet policy goals. This project resulted from a combination of publicly owned land, municipal initiative, a quasi public housing agency expertise and a private architecture/ developer with a commitment to affordable housing. Could a project like this work in Arlington MA?
In 2015 Town Meeting approved the Master Plan. Following is the Housing chapter of that plan. It contains a great deal of information about details of the housing situation in Arlington, challenges of housing price increases, needs for specialty housing, opportunities for meeting these needs, etc. The authors found that “most cities and towns around Arlington experienced a significant rise in housing values from 2000 to 2010. A 40 percent increase in the median value was fairly common. However, Arlington experienced more dramatic growth in housing values than any community in the immediate area, except Somerville. In fact, Arlington’s home values almost doubled.” This and related data helps explain why the need for affordable housing is now so acute.
by Annie LaCourt
One of the concerns people have about the current MBTA Communities zoning proposal is the effect that the increase in housing will have on the town’s budget. Will the need for new services make demands on our budget we cannot meet without more frequent overrides? Or will the new tax revenues from the new buildings cover the cost of that increase in services?
The simple answers to these questions are
- No: It will not make unmanageable demands on the budget; and
- Yes: the new tax revenue from the multi-family housing anticipated will cover the costs of any new services required.
Adopting the current MBTA Communities zoning proposal may even slow the growth of our structural deficit, as I will show in more detail using as examples some of the more recent multi-family projects that have been built in Arlington.
How Does Our Budget Work and What is the Structural Deficit?
First, some basic facts about finance in Arlington: Like every other community in Massachusetts, Arlington’s property tax increases are limited by Proposition 2.5 to 2.5% of the levy limit each year. What is the levy limit? It’s all of the taxes we are allowed to collect across the whole town, without getting specific approval from the Town’s voters. For FY 23 the levy limit is $135,136,908. $3,271,996 of that is the 2.5% increase we are allowed under the law. But also added to that is $1,202,059 of new growth, which comes from properties whose assessment changed because they were substantially improved–either renovated or by increasing capacity. When we reassess a property that has a new house or building on it, we are allowed to add the new taxes generated by the change in value of the property to the levy limit.
Property taxes make up approximately 75% of the town’s revenue. So – except for new growth – that means that the bulk of our budget can only grow 2.5% a year. Other categories of income like State Aid have a much less reliable growth pattern. If the state has a bad fiscal year, our state aid is likely to remain flat or decrease.
Expenses
On the expense side, our default is a budget to maintain the same level of services year to year. We cap increases in the budgets of town departments by 3.25% and the school budget by 3.5%, save for special education costs which are capped slightly higher.
We also have several major categories of expense that are beyond our control that increase at a greater rate than 2.5%. These include, among other things, funding our pension obligations, health insurance costs and our trash collection contract.
Structural Deficit
This difference between the increase in revenues and the increase in costs is the structural deficit. It’s structural because we can’t cut our way out of it without curtailing services severely and we can’t stop paying for things like pensions and insurance that are contractual obligations.
The question of how MBTA communities zoning will affect this is crucial. So let’s take a deeper dive, first on revenue and then on expenses.
How Will MBTA Communities Affect New Growth?
How MBTA-C zoning will affect new growth depends on what gets built and at what rate. Let’s consider some real world examples:
882 Mass Ave. used to be a single story commercial building. It was assessed at $938,000 and the owner paid approximately $9,887 in taxes annually. It has been rebuilt as a mixed use building with commercial space on the ground level and 22 apartments on 4 floors above. The new assessment is approximately $4,800,000 and the new tax bill is about $54,000.00. That means $45,000 in new growth – new property taxes that will grow at the rate of 2.5% in subsequent years.
Another example is 117 Broadway. The building that used to be at that address was entirely commercial, assessed at $1,050,000 and paid around $11,770 in taxes annually. After being rebuilt as mixed use by the Housing Corporation of Arlington, it is assessed at $3,900,000 and taxed at $43,719. 117 Broadway has commercial on the ground floor and 4 stories of affordable housing above. The new growth for this example is approximately $30,000.
What these examples show, and our assessor believes is a pattern, is that a new mixed use or multi-family building increases the taxes we can collect by as much as 400%, depending on the kinds of housing units.
So we can expect new development under MBTA Communities to increase the levy limit substantially over time, reducing the size and frequency of future tax increases.
How Will This New Housing Affect the Cost of Services?
Of course, with new residents comes a need for additional services. However, town-provided services will be impacted differently. Snow and Ice removal, for example, will not be affected at all – we aren’t adding new roads. Many other services provided by public works are like snow and ice: They would only increase at a faster rate if we added more land area or more town facilities to the base.
Services like public safety and health and human services may see gradual increases in service requests, as more people place more demand on these departments. Right now we have a patrol officer for every 850 or so residents. This means we might need to add a new patrol officer if the population increases by 850 residents. But it’s not clear that a new officer would be needed; it depends on the trends the police department sees in their data. I think of these services as increasing by stair steps: Adding a few, or even a few hundred, residents doesn’t require us to add staff to provide more services. Adding a few thousand might mean we need to add a position but we will have added a great deal to the levy limit before we need to add those positions.
Trash Collection Impact
There is one town service that sees an impact every time we add a new unit of housing – trash collection. The town spends approximately $200 per household on solid waste collection and disposal. As mentioned above, 882 Broadway has 22 new 1 bedroom and studio apartments. When that building was all commercial the businesses paid privately for trash removal. The new trash collection costs will be at least $4,400 annually. It’s possible, however, that the building will need a dumpster and that could cost up to $20,000 annually. Either way the new revenue ($45,000) outstrips the increased costs. The town is working on creative solutions for new buildings to keep this cost as affordable as possible.
What About Schools?
Regardless of new housing construction, our student population ebbs and flows. Families move in with small children who go through the school system. The kids graduate high school but their parents, now in their 50’s or 60’s, don’t move until they are much older and need a different living situation. When they sell their homes, the new owners are likely to be families with children again. We can see a pattern of boom and bust in our school population if we look back. Right now, we are seeing a drop in elementary population as this cycle plays out again. We now have 221 fewer students enrolled in the elementary schools than we did in 2019.
We account for this ebb and flow in the budget. A number of years ago, we set a policy to add a growth factor to the school budget. We increase the budget by 50% of per pupil costs for each new student. Currently that is $8800.00 per student. But the policy works in reverse as well. We reduce the budget by the same amount per child as the student population wanes. We also see increased state aid under chapter 70 when our student population grows and may see reductions if it shrinks.
Will Multifamily Homes Add Students?
The new multi-family housing generated by MBTA communities zoning may add students to our schools – but not as many as you might think. Other large multi-family developments like the Legacy apartments and the new development at the old Brigham site have not added a lot of children to the schools directly. Going back to our two example buildings, 882 Mass Ave is all studio and 1 bedroom units, so we are unlikely to see children living there. Our MBTA communities zoning, however, must by law allow new housing that is appropriate for families. So for planning purposes, it’s best to assume we will see growth in the school population.
So what will the effect of this new housing be on the school population and our budget? Given that the new housing will be built gradually, it’s more likely to stabilize our student population than precipitously increase it. The same will be true for our budget: We will see some increases in the school budget growth factor but also increases in state aid and increases in tax revenue from the new construction.
Conclusions
If we create an MBTA communities zone per the working groups recommendation or something close to that, we will see the effect on our budget over time, not immediately. Even if the zone has a theoretical capacity of 1300 additional units (total capacity minus what is already there) the development of new housing won’t be abrupt. For budget purposes, we project our long range plan five years into the future.
When we get to a year, say FY 2023, the actual state of our budget never looks exactly like the projection created five years earlier. We cannot predict the future very far out. What we can do is look back and see what the effects of previous development have been on our budget, and we can assess the risks of our decisions. Experience tells us that multi-family development doesn’t break the budget or swamp the schools, even when the developments are large. It also tells us that turnover in the population causes ebbs and flows in the school population, regardless of new development. We can say with certainty that multi-family development increases our revenues through new growth, and that past experience has been that that new growth mitigates the need for overrides.
My conclusion is that the new development that will occur if we create a robust zone that allows multi-family development by right, will at worst give us growth in our revenues that keeps pace with any increase in services we need. At best, those new revenues will outstrip the growth in expenses and help mitigate our structural deficit. The risk of allowing this new growth is low, and the rewards are worth it, in the form of new missing middle housing, climate change mitigation, and vibrant business districts fueled by new customers nearby.
A report by Mass Housing Partnership’s Shelly Goehring looks at Arlington’s housing development history and policies to understand how municipal action and inaction can contribute to housing inaffordability and can limit the population diversity within a community. The report implies that it has been difficult historically for reputable housing developers to work with the regulatory structure within Arlington to get housing built.
Massachusetts has the nation’s 2nd largest gap in homeownership between households of color (31% own homes) and white households (69% own homes).
See the complete report for more information.
(Elliot L. is an 8th grader at the Ottoson Middle School)
In the middle of COVID-19, I started to notice a large construction project happening right down the street in our little neck of the woods by Thompson school. I simply assumed it was another apartment building, but after asking the adults of my community, I found it was much more impactful than that. Arlington was supporting a large affordable housing project to be established, along with plans of putting Arlington EATS, a food pantry, below it. This got the gears in my tiny sixth grade mind churning. I began asking questions like: how do you apply to live there? How much does it cost? Do the owners provide you with furniture? Of course, most of those questions were answered by my parents, and then quickly put in the back of my mind. However, the idea of affordable housing stuck with me, especially when you can see it from your front porch. Upon reaching the 8th grade, where I am now, I found myself and every student in my class presented with a year long project trying to make change in Arlington. This assignment, called the Civics Action Project, or CAP, guides students to choosing a local issue they wish to address.
The premise got me thinking. How can I help my community with our rising cost of living and need for affordable housing? Initially, the other students and I were overwhelmed by the magnitude of the issue, and had trouble thinking of a reachable solution.
Despite this, a small group of classmates and I were intrigued by a bill mentioned by Claire Ricker, Arlington’s director of Planning and Community Development, during an informational panel. Ms. Ricker talked about the MBTA Communities Act, a law requiring Arlington to create higher-density housing near the T. We knew we had found our goal, to raise awareness and support zoning for affordable housing as part of the act.
However, as our research continued, we learned of the real function of this legislation. The goal of the MBTA communities act is to build more compact middle income housing. This will make it so people like young adults and downsizers can come to live in this town, building their future and contributing to a diverse community. This is an essential step in the right direction for the town, but our strides need to be longer.
In order to support our goal, we still wanted to learn more about Arlington’s affordable housing needs. We wanted to promote those issues, as well as the missing middle housing we desperately need. Our group started by conducting a survey that we posted on Arlington forums, along with directly sending it to as many people as we could. 60 residents responded, and we then shared these results with Select Board member Len Diggins. Here are some of the most interesting results of this survey!
- Many people in Arlington still struggle with home, food, and job insecurities.
- The cost of living has made almost every family surveyed have to change their lifestyle in some way.
- Over 1/3 of Arlington residents believe their salary is not enough to support their families.
- 87% of people think Arlington government is making a subpar effort at combating these issues.
- When asked what they would like to see the town do, Arlington residents supported the idea of building more affordable housing and providing aid and support to local food distribution groups, such as Foodlink or Arlington EATS.
- About half of residents have heard of and know about the MBTA communities act.
After the results of our survey, along with other actions taken to learn more about the MBTA communities act, my group and I came to a conclusion of our plan: In order to try and make a change in Arlington, we were going to spread the word to as many adults as we could in order to support both the higher-density housing the MBTA communities act is focused on, and lower cost housing. While these are separate things, our thinking is that the more people who can vote and hear about this, the more willing they will be to connect and support the different pieces of the puzzle to solve our housing issue. This is not just a one-time thing. The MBTA communities act is a planned, strategic opportunity to make Arlington a better place for the future. We hope with the information provided, you will also keep the cause of affordable housing progressing as well. Thank you for reading!
The discussions on zoning have been confusing because while zoning covers ALL of Arlington’s land and the zoning bylaws for all Arlington’s zones are referenced, the key issues of greatest interest to Town Meeting are the discussions about increasing density. These discussions pertain ONLY to those properties currently zoned as R4-R7 and the B (Business) districts. These density related changes would affect only about 7% of Arlington’s land area. The map shows the specific zones that would potentially be affected. They lay along major transportation corridors.
The calculation for what is permanently affordable housing is complicated. Arlington’s affordable rate is based on a region that includes the Area Median Income (AMI) of the Cambridge-Boston-Quincy region. The rate is adjusted and reset periodically according to federal HUD guidelines. The rate is applied based on family size and on the Town’s definition of what income level is eligible for Inclusionary Housing opportunities in Arlington. In Arlington a 3 person family would qualify if their income was under 60% of AMI. At this time, that is approximately $58,000 for a family of three.
For more information, see this table of income limits from Cambridge’s Community Development Department, and this short paper on affordable housing from the City of Boston.
For Arlington’s Nov 2020 Special Town Meeting, my colleague Ben Rudick filed the following warrant article:
ARTICLE 18: ZONING BYLAW AMENDMENT/IMPROVING RESIDENTIAL INCLUSIVENESS, SUSTAINABILITY, AND AFFORDABILITY BY ENDING SINGLE FAMILY ZONING
To see if the Town will vote to amend the Zoning Bylaw for the Town of Arlington by expanding the set of allowed residential uses in the R0 and R1 zoning districts with the goal of expanding and diversifying the housing stock by altering the district definitions for the R0 and R1 zoning districts; or take any action related thereto.
(Inserted at the request of Benjamin Rudick and ten registered voters)
The Inspiration
Our goal with Article 18 is to allow two-family homes, by right, in two districts that are exclusively zoned for single-family homes. This is similar to what city of Minneapolis and the state of Oregon did in 2019. The motivations fall into three broad categories: the history of single-family zoning as a mechanism for racial segregation, environmental concerns arising from car-oriented suburban sprawl, and the regional shortage of housing and its high cost. We’ll elaborate on these concerns in the following paragraphs, and end with a proposed main motion.
Single-family zoning as a mechanism for racial segregation. Single-family zoning began to take hold in the United States during the 1920’s, after the Supreme Court declared racially-based zoning unconstitutional in 1917. Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover encouraged cities and towns to adopt single-family zoning ordinances, effectively substituting segregation based on race with segregation based on economic status. The idea was furthered by the Home Owners Loan Corporation of America’s (HOLC’s) redlining maps (created between 1935 and 1940), and the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA’s) mortgage insurance policies from 1934–1968. The HOLC designated areas with black populations as “hazardous” and actuarially risky, and the FHA used these maps when making underwriting decisions. In short, the FHA was in the business of underwriting loans to white home buyers in white neighborhoods.
Of Arlington’s 7,998 single-family homes, 4,080 (51%) were built during 1934–1968 (per Arlington Assessor’s data). The FHA was the primary mortgage underwriter during this time, and we believe it is reasonable to expect that a substantial number of these homes were originally purchased with FHA mortgages. Put another way, most of our single-family housing was likely built according to FHA guidelines of “avoiding inharmonious mixing or races”, aka segregation. Arlington’s population was 99% white in 1970 and even higher during previous decades. We certainly met the criteria of being a white community.
We believe it’s important to recognize this history, and to have a conversation about how we might restore a balance of fairness.
Environmental concerns. When compared with their multi-family counterparts, single-family homes are less energy efficient, more land intensive, and are associated with higher carbon emissions due to ransportation. Car transportation is a useful analogy; having everyone drive in their own car is more carbon-intensive than carpooling (two-family homes), which in turn is more carbon-intensive than taking the bus (3+ unit buildings). Maps created by Berkeley’s Cool Climate Project show this in a clear way: per household carbon emissions are lower in urban areas than they are in the surrounding suburbs. (Note that authors of the Berkeley report do not advocate getting rid of suburbs, but they do state that suburbs will require different carbon reduction strategies than urban areas).
We believe it is more environmentally responsible to build additional homes on sites that are already developed, rather than (say) going out to the suburban fringes along route 495 and clearing half-acre lots. If we do not provide ample housing within Arlington and other inner-ring suburbs, new workers will likely live further out and have longer, more carbon-intensive commutes. Climate change is a crisis, and our response must involve changing how we live, and that includes ending the twentieth-century pattern of suburban sprawl.
The shortage and high cost of housing. Since 2010, the fifteen cities and towns in the Metro Mayor’s coalition have added 148,000 jobs and 110,000 new residents, but have only permitted 32,500 new homes; this has added to a housing shortage that’s been growing for decades. The imbalance between supply and demand has contributed to rising prices and a very hot market. In 2019, the median sale price for homes in Arlington was $821k. We do not expect construction to be a complete solution to Arlington’s housing costs, but we do believe it is a necessary step in meeting rising demand and counteracting rising costs.
Article 18 is most likely to influence the cost of newly-constructed homes. Newly-constructed single-family homes typically sell in the $1.2M–1.5M range while condominiums in new duplexes typically fall into the $800k–1.1M range. These duplex units are not cheap, but they offer a price point roughly four hundred thousand dollars less than new single-family homes.
We also believe our proposal directly addresses three concerns raised by last year’s multi-family proposal (aka 2019 ATM Article 16):
- Concentration. Last year’s proposal would have concentrated new housing around the town’s business corridors, and Massachusetts Avenue in particular. Article 18 will spread new housing across the majority of the town, as 60% of Arlington’s land area (and 80% of its residentially-zoned land) is currently zoned exclusively for single-family homes (figures provided by Arlingtons Department of Planning and Community Development).
- Height and Shadows. Last year’s proposal would have allowed taller buildings along the commercial corridors; there were concerns about increased height, and the shadows new buildings might cast. Article 18 makes no changes to our zoning bylaw’s dimensional regulation; homes built under this bylaw could be no larger than homes we already allow, by right.
- Displacement. Last year’s proposal drew concerns that businesses and apartment renters would be displaced by new construction. Article 18 applies to districts that are exclusively zoned for single-family homes. 95% of our single-family homes are owner-occupied, and can only be rebuilt or renovated with the owner’s consent. We believe this minimizes any risk of displacement.
Finally, we expect the board will be interested in the number of homes that might be added under this proposal, and the potential impact on the school system. We’ll attempt to address those questions here.
Arlington’s report on Demolitions and Replacement Homes states an average of 27 rebuilds or substantial renovations per year, averaged over a ten year period. For the purpose of discussion, we expect the number of new homes added under this proposed bylaw change to be somewhere between half and double that amount, or 14–54 homes/year. Arlington has 7,998 single-family homes so this is a replacement rate well under 1%/year. It will be nothing like the 500 new homes/year that Arlington was building during the 1920s.
Assessing the impact on the school system amounts (in part) to estimating the number of new school students created by the addition of 14–54 homes/year. One can conceivably see this playing out according to three scenarios. Scenario 1 is simply “by the numbers”. The Housing section of Cambridge’s Alewife District Plan estimates one new student for every 17 new homes (see pg. 145), and the economic analysis of Arlington’s industrial districts gives a net increase of one new student for every 20 new condominiums (see slide 49). Both work out to an increase of 1–3 students per year for the addition of 14–54 homes. This is substantially smaller than past enrollment growth, and something the schools should easily be able to handle.
Second, one could imagine a scenario where elementary school enrollment is in modest decline, as students who entered Arlington public schools in the middle of the last decade move on to middle and high school. Here, new elementary students would utilize existing classroom space, which was created to accommodate students that came before them. It’s a scenario where enrollment stabilizes and doesn’t increase much.
Third, one could picture a scenario where any new home is immediately filled with children. Under this assumption it’s likely that any turnover of single-family homes or suitably-sized condominiums would attract families with children. With 7,998 single-family homes, there is little to prevent another demographic turnover from causing another increase in school enrollment, even if Arlington never adds a single additional home.
In summary, the effects on school enrollment are not easy to predict and several outcomes are possible. Ultimately, this will depend on Arlington’s attractiveness to young families, and our ability to retain these families once their students graduate from school.
Our Proposal to the Arlington Redevelopment Board
We propose that the Zoning Bylaw of the Town of Arlington be amended as
follows:
- By adding the letter “Y” to the “Use Regulations for Residential Districts” table in Section 5.4.3, in the row labeled “Two family dwelling, duplex”, and under the columns labeled “R0” and “R1”;
- By adding the letters “SP” to the “Use Regulations for Residential Districts” table in Section 5.4.3, in the row labeled “Six or more units in two-family dwellings or duplex dwelling on one or more contiguous lots”, and under the columns labeled “R0” and “R1”,
Class of Use | R0 | R1 | R2 |
Two-family dwelling | Y | Y | Y |
Six or more units in two-family dwellings or duplex dwelling on one or more contiguous lots | SP | SP | SP |
and, by making the following changes to the definitions of the R0 and R1 districts in Section 5.4.1(A):
R0: Large Lot Single-FamilyResidential District. The Large Lot Single-FamilyResidential District has the lowest residential density of all districts and is generally served by local streets only. The Town discourages intensive land uses, uses that would detract from the single-family residential character of these neighborhoods, and uses that would otherwise interfere with the intent of this Bylaw.
R1: Single-FamilyR1 Residential District. The predominant uses in R1 are single- and two-family dwellings and public land and buildings. The Town discourages intensive land uses, uses that would detract from the single-family residential character of these neighborhoods, and uses that would otherwise interfere with the intent of this Bylaw.
Related Materials
Our Redevelopment Board Hearing
We presented Article 18 to the redevelopment board on Oct 26th. You can watch the presentation below.
The Redevelopment Board did their deliberations and voting two days later, on October 28th. Their report is available from the Town website.
At least three members of the board were supportive of the effort, but they ultimately voted to recommend this action. I attribute the no action vote to two factors. First, in January 2020 the Redevelopment board agreed to perform a public engagement campaign, to educate residents on housing issues facing the town, and to gather input on how those issues could be addressed. The public engagement effort hasn’t started yet (mainly due to the pandemic), and the board was hesitant to recommend favorable action without doing an outreach campaign first.
Second, the board was interested in attaching standards to single- to two-family conversions, and didn’t feel there was enough time in this town meeting cycle to devise an appropriate set of standards. They were interested in design requirements and collecting payments to an affordable housing trust fund. Standards are interesting idea, and worthy of further consideration. For my own taste, I’d be more inclined to ask for performance standards that tied in to Arlington’s Net Zero Action plan.
So, we are going to take the ARB’s feedback, work on the idea some more, and resubmit during a future town meeting.