The new proposal is just the most recent step in a process that reaches back almost a decade, culminating in the Master Plan (2015), the Housing Production Plan (2016) and the mixed-using zoning amendments of 2016. The Town has consistently proposed smart growth: more development along Arlington’s transit corridors to increase the tax base, stimulate local commerce, and provide more varied housing opportunities for everyone, including low and moderate income Arlingtonians. This year’s proposals are no head-long rush into change. Today’s debate is similar to the debate before Town Meeting three years ago. If anything, progress has been frustratingly slow. To realize the Master Plan’s vision of a vibrant Arlington with diverse housing types for a diverse population, we must stay the course on which we have been embarked for so long.
Related articles
(DRAFT – 7/11/2019)
Overview
Arlington Planning Department officials report on options for the Town to mitigate the effects of housing demolitions and housing replacements in neighborhoods.
Evidence suggests that lack of appropriate regulatory policies have led to incidences of “mcmansions” and other issues that concern neighborhood residents. This study looks at the data, the policy and regulatory options for Arlington. It also looks at how comparable nearby communities have managed similar circumstances.
This 42 page report covers a great deal of data and analysis of homes by zoning district, gaps in the effectiveness of the current regulatory structure, affects on affordability in Arlington by zoning district, information on housing prices and sales, etc.
“Best practices” include descriptions of demolition delay, expansion of local historic districts, neighborhood conservation districts, design review standards and guidelines and possible revisions to the regulatory framework in Arlington. The report also includes interesting case examples of how comparable communities near Arlington handle these issues.
This report was presented to the Arlington Select Board on July 22.
Read the complete report and see the available data and tables.
Restrictive covenants are a “list of obligations that purchasers of property must assume … For the first half of the 20th century, one commonplace commitment was a promise never to sell or rent to an African American”. [1] These covenants gained popularity after the Supreme Court’s 1917 decision in Buchanan v. Warley.
Rothstein’s book The Color of Law mentions examples from Brookline, MA; Arlington, MA has examples of it’s own. We’ll look at one from an East Arlington deed dating to 1923. Credit to Christopher Sacca for finding these documents.
First, a land plan to establish content. Below is the subdivision plan for a farm owned by Herbert and Margaret Allen. I count a little over 200 lots in this subdivision. The plan itself states that “no single house shall cost less than $6,000 and no double house shall
cost less than $8,000″. This language also appears in the property deed.
One of the deeds from these parcels appears in book 4631 page 218 and book 4631 page 219, in the Southern Middlesex registry of deeds.
Here’s page 218; the deed begins at the bottom.
Here’s page 219. The racial covenant appears halfway down the page. It reads “No sale or lease of any said lots shall be made to colored people, no any dwelling on any said lots be sold or occupied by colored people”.
The 1920’s were a time of significant residential growth in Arlington, as farmers (called “Market Gardeners” at the time) subdivided and sold off their land. This example shows that Arlington, MA landowners employed some of the same discriminatory tactics for segregation as other communities in the United States. It would take further research to determine how common the use of such covenants was early twentieth-century Arlington.
Footnotes
[1] The Color of Law. Richard Rothstein. pg. 78
Why Is This Our Issue & What Should We Do About It?
(presented by Adam Chapdelaine, Town Manager, to Select Board on July 22, 2019)
Overview
Since 1980 the price of housing in Massachusetts has surged well ahead of other fast growing states including California and New York. While the national “House Price Index” is just below 400, four times what an average house might have cost in 1980, a typical house in Massachusetts is now about 720% what it was in 1980. Median household income in the state has only increased about 15% during the same period. No wonder people in Arlington are feeling the stresses of housing costs if they want to live here and are feeling protective of the equity value time has provided them if they bought years ago.
In response to concerns about zoning, affordable housing and housing density, the Town joined the “Mayors’ (and Managers’) Coalition on Housing” to address these growing pressures. This 12 page slide deck presentation outlines the key data points, the number of low and very low income households in Arlington, the rate of condo conversion that is absorbing rental units, etc.
Solutions are offered including:
• Amendments to Inclusionary Zoning Bylaw
• Housing Creation Along Commercial Corridor – Mixed Use & Zoning Along Corridor
• Accessory Dwelling Units – Potential Age & Family Restrictions
• Other Tools Can Be Considered That Are Outside of Zoning But Have An Impact on Housing
Chapdelaine’s suggested next steps are:
• Continued Public Engagement
• Town Manager & Director of DPCD Meet with ARB
• Select Board & ARB Hold Joint Meeting in Early Fall
• ARB Recommends Strategies to Pursue in Late Fall/Early Winter
The Select Board approved the suggested next steps and a joint ARB/ Select Board meeting should be scheduled in the near future.
Note from Reporter: As a community, Arlington has long prided itself on its economic diversity. With condo conversions, tear downs leading to “McMansions”, higher paid workers arriving in response to new jobs, etc., Arlington is at great risk of losing this diversity that has long enriched the community. Retirees looking to downsize and young people who have grown up in Arlington looking for their first apartment are finding it impossible to stay in town. Shop keepers and town employees are challenged to afford the rising housing costs. With a reconsideration of zoning along Arlington’s transit corridors, Arlington NOW has an opportunity to create new village centers, like those recommended in the recent STATE OF HOUSING report. These village centers along our transit corridors could be higher, denser but also offer the compelling visual design and amenities desired by people who want to walk to cafes, shops and public transit.
Thanks to so many of you who came out Monday evening for the demonstration in support of the MBTA Communities proposal before the Arlington Redevelopment Board meeting! Over 20 people were there – a substantial and notable showing, especially on such short notice. Paulette Schwarz took some photos of the demonstration early in the evening which she kindly shared with us.
by Andy Greenspon
Image credit: Henry Hudson Kitson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In 2023, Lexington was one of the first towns to comply with the State “MBTA Communities” law (MBTA-C) by adding 227 acres to several multifamily overlay zones. When discussing this proposal, it was estimated to possibly generate 400-800 units in 4-10 years. However, after receiving building permit applications for about 1,100 units in the first year (including 160 inclusionary affordable units), Lexington passed Article 2 at a Special Town Meeting recently, which decreased the amount of land in these zones to approximately 90 acres. What can Arlington learn from Lexington’s experience?
Overall, Lexington’s experience shows us that developers are willing and able to build multifamily housing on large lots that aren’t very built up, and that MBTA-C can be successful in adding new housing in some circumstances. However, Arlington has few if any large, sparsely-built parcels zoned to allow multifamily housing under MBTA-C. As such, Arlington is unlikely to add significant amounts of new housing or affordable housing as a result of the MBTA-C overlay passed at Town Meeting in fall of 2023.
Parcel Size and Existing Buildings
Many of the parcels in Lexington’s MBTA-C zone are multiple acres each, are underutilized, and contain older office space. In contrast, Arlington’s MBTA-C parcels are much smaller and mostly covered with existing buildings, typically residential.
The largest development approved under MBTA-C so far in Lexington is at 3-5 Militia Drive. This land is three very large parcels containing a couple older office buildings, a previous religious institution, and giant surface parking lots. Therefore, such a property was already primed for redevelopment and the large lots allowed for 292 units to be approved. These parcels are also within walking distance of Lexington Town Center and the Minuteman Bike path, so multi-family housing on this location is a great use.
In contrast, there are no similar parcels in Arlington in the MBTA-C zone with large surface parking lots and aged office space that could be redeveloped in such a manner. One of the few parcels in Arlington that is somewhat similar to the planned parcels for redevelopment in Lexington would be the Walgreens at 324 Massachusetts Ave, 1.5 acres with a surface parking lot. However, this parcel was specifically excluded from the MBTA-C overlay along with all other business parcels to avoid displacing any existing business space. And the parcel is unlikely to be redeveloped one way or another unless Walgreens chooses to close their business and sell the parcel to a developer.
In short, compared to Lexington, Arlington is “built out” insofar as almost every parcel is utilized in some manner with high lot coverage. The original Lexington MBTA-C zone contained many parcels with low lot coverage, large surface parking lots, and underutilized office space, all attributes that make such parcels more likely to be sold to a developer to construct housing if permitted by zoning.
Last, while 1,100 units have been permitted so far, this does not mean all these units will be constructed given current financial uncertainty in the economy and high interest rates. It will also take several years for these properties to be completed and prepared for occupancy. As such, the original estimate of 400-800 units in 4-10 years (an estimate that actually widely ranges from 40 units all the way to 200 units per year) may in fact not be that far off from the final numbers once buildings are completed. The parcels most primed for redevelopment were acquired and permitted first. Finally, it is not entirely clear how many more parcels would have been redeveloped in the next 5-10 years had the Lexington MBTA-C zoning not been reduced in size.
Development Potential in Arlington
Most privately owned lots in Arlington are less than ⅓ of an acre with many much smaller, significantly limiting the amount of new housing development on any single parcel. Almost all of these lots are covered by existing buildings, and some of those buildings are condominiums. Therefore, in order for a large new construction project to occur on such parcels in Arlington’s MBTA-C multifamily zone, all of the following would have to take place:
- a single owner would have to take control of multiple lots and/or condominiums, meaning that
- multiple existing property owners would have to want to sell at the same time, or else the new owner would have to take the time and risk to assemble the property slowly, and
- the new proposed development would have to be large and profitable enough to make up for the combined purchase prices of all the properties acquired.
Meanwhile, properties in Arlington generally turn over at a fairly slow and steady pace. This is in contrast to underused large commercial properties, whose owners are more eager to sell.
With simulation modeling performed on potential rate of redevelopment, the Arlington Redevelopment Board’s 2023 Report to Town Meeting on the MBTA-C proposal projected that 15–45 parcels could be redeveloped over the next ten years, for a net increase of 50–200 new units or 5–20 per year, far fewer than even the initial Lexington housing unit construction estimates at the time of passage of their initial MBTA-C zoning.
In fact, Arlington has seen even less than the low end estimate of 5 units per year so far since our MBTA-C zoning became effective. Only a single project has been permitted so far, which would turn an existing 2-unit building into 4 units, a potential net gain of 2 housing units.
Lessons
- There is strong regional demand for housing including for multifamily units.
- Developers are currently willing and able to build when lots are available, are zoned multifamily, and aren’t already full of other buildings.
- Arlington can’t expect anywhere near as many new units with our current zoning as Lexington saw, because our MBTA-C multifamily zones are almost exclusively made up of smaller and built-up lots.
- As a result, Arlington’s current zoning won’t add much housing or affordable housing to our community, and won’t noticeably increase our tax base either.