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
It’s the time of year when folks in Arlington are taking out nomination papers, gathering signatures, and strategizing on how to campaign for the town election on Saturday April 1st. The town election is where we choose members of Arlington’s governing institutions, including the Select Board (Arlington’s executive branch), the School Committee, and — most relevantly for this post — Town Meeting.
If you’re new to New England, Town Meeting is an institution you may not have heard of, but it’s basically the town’s Legislative Branch. Town Meeting consists of 12 members from each of 21 Precincts, for 252 members total. Members serve three-year terms, with one-third of the seats up for election in any year, so that each precinct elects four representatives per year (perhaps with an extra seat or two, as needed to fill vacancies). For a deeper dive, Envision Arlington’s ABC’s of Arlington Government gives a great overview of Arlington’s government structure.
As our legislative branch, town meeting’s powers and responsibilities include:
- Passing the Town’s Operating Budget, which details planned expenses for the next year.
- Approving the town’s Capital Budget, which includes vehicle and equipment purchases, playgrounds, and town facilities.
- Bylaw changes. Town meeting is the only body that can amend the towns bylaws, including ones that affect housing — what kinds can be built, how much, and where.
Town Meeting is an excellent opportunity to serve your community, and to learn about how Arlington and its municipal government works. Any registered voter is eligible to run. If this sounds like an interesting prospect, we encourage you to run! Here’s what you’ll need to do:
- Have a look at the town’s Information for new and Prospective Town Meeting Members.
- Contact the Town Clerk’s office to get a set of nomination papers. You’ll need to do this by 5:00 PM February 12th, 2025 at the latest.
- Gather signatures. You’ll need signatures from at least ten registered voters in your precinct to get on the ballot (it’s always good to get a few extra signatures, to be safe).
- Return your signed nomination papers to the Clerk’s office by February 14, 2025 at 5:00 PM.
- Campaign! Get a map and voter list for your precinct, knock on doors, and introduce yourself. (Having a flier to distribute is also helpful.)
- Vote on Saturday April 5th, and wait for the results.
Town Meeting traditionally meets every Monday and Wednesday at 8:00 PM, starting on the 4th Monday in April (which is April 28th this year), and lasting until the year’s business is concluded (typically a few weeks).
If you’d like to connect with an experienced Town Meeting Member about the logistics of campaigning, or the reality of serving at Town Meeting, please email info(AT)equitable-arlington.org and we’d be happy to make an introduction.
During the past few years, Town Meeting was our pathway to legalizing accessory dwelling units, reducing minimum parking requirements, loosening restrictions on mixed-use development in Arlington’s business districts, and adopting multi-family zoning for MBTA Communities. Aside from being a rewarding experience, it’s a way to make a difference!
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.
This letter appeared in the Boston Globe on Dec. 19th. It’s reprinted
here with permission from the author, Eugene Benson.
The Dec. 12 letter from Jo Anne Preston unfortunately repeats misinformation making the rounds in Arlington (“Arlington is a case study in grappling with rezoning“).
At April Town Meeting, the Arlington Redevelopment Board recommended a vote of no action on its warrant article that would have allowed increased density along the town’s commercial corridors in exchange for building more affordable housing (known as “incentive zoning”), when it became obvious that the article would be unlikely to gain a two-thirds vote for passage, in part because of the complexity of what was proposed.
A warrant article to allow accessory dwelling units in existing housing (“in-law apartments”) gained more than 60 percent of the vote at Town Meeting but not the two-thirds vote necessary to change zoning.
The letter writer mentioned “naturally occurring affordable apartment buildings.” The typical monthly rent for an apartment in those older buildings ranges from about $1,700 for a one-bedroom to about $2,300 for a two-bedroom, according to real estate data from CoStar. Those are not affordable rents for lower-income people. For example, a senior couple with the national average Social Security income of about $2,500 per month would spend most of their income just to pay the rent.
We need to protect the ability of people with lower incomes to withstand rent increases and gentrification. That, however, requires a different approach than hoping for naturally occurring affordable housing to be there even five years from now.
Eugene B. Benson
Arlington
The writer’s views expressed here are his own, and are not offered on behalf of the Arlington Redevelopment Board, of which he is a member.
I’ve had an annual ritual for the past several years: obtain a spreadsheet of property assessments from the Town Assessor, load them in to a database, and run a series of R computations against the data. I started doing this for a number of reasons: to understand what was built where (our zoning laws have changed over time, and there are numerous non-conforming uses), the relationship between land and building values, the capital costs of different types of housing, and how these factors have changed over time.
I’d typically compile these analyses into a fact-book of sorts, and email it around to people that I thought might be interested. This year, I’m going to post the analyses here as a series of articles. This first installment contains basic information about Arlington’s low-density housing: single-, two-, and three-family homes, as well as condominiums. Condominiums are something of an oddball in this category — a condominium can be half of a two-family structure, part of a larger residential building, or somewhere in between. There’s a lot of variety.
Here’s a table showing how the number of units has changed over time, since 2013.
| land use | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single Family | 7984 | 7983 | 7991 | 8000 | 7994 | 7994 | 7998 | 7999 |
| Condominium | 3242 | 3304 | 3367 | 3492 | 3552 | 3662 | 3726 | 3827 |
| Two-family | 2352 | 2332 | 2308 | 2282 | 2263 | 2218 | 2183 | 2139 |
| Three-family | 207 | 201 | 196 | 194 | 193 | 190 | 185 | 182 |
Arlington’s predominant form of housing — the single family home — has stayed relatively static; we’ve added 15 over the last seven years. The number of condominiums has increased significantly: +585 over seven years. That, coupled with the reduction of two-family homes (-213) and three-family homes (-25) leads me to believe that a fair number of rental units have been removed from the market.
Next, I’d like to look at how these homes are spread across our various zoning districts. (The “Notes” section at the bottom of the post explains what the zoning district codes mean).
| Zone | Single-Family | Condo | Two-family | Three-family |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| B1 | 8 | 22 | 13 | 11 |
| B2 | 1 | 4 | 1 | |
| B2A | 1 | 18 | ||
| B3 | 59 | 4 | ||
| B4 | 1 | 59 | 5 | 5 |
| B5 | 1 | 1 | ||
| I | 8 | 18 | 7 | 1 |
| R0 | 502 | |||
| R1 | 6798 | 168 | 200 | 7 |
| R2 | 647 | 1816 | 1881 | 124 |
| R3 | 4 | 39 | 11 | 17 |
| R4 | 23 | 79 | 2 | 3 |
| R5 | 3 | 616 | 5 | 4 |
| R6 | 2 | 686 | 8 | 7 |
| R7 | 1 | 243 | 2 | 1 |
A few points to note:
- R0 is our newest district, which was established in 1991. It consists only of conforming single-family homes.
- R1 is Arlington’s original (per 1975 zoning) single-family district. It’s predominantly single-family homes, but there are a fair number of two-family homes, and even a few three-families. The presence of condominiums suggests additional multi-family homes (that consist of two or more condominiums)
- R2 is predominantly two-, and three-family homes. Although three-family homes are no longer allowed in this district, R2 has the largest number of three-families in town.
- Residential uses are no longer allowed in the industrial (I) districts, but the I districts contain 34 homes. These buildings pre-date the current zoning laws (aka “pre-existing non-conforming”). A good portion of the Dudley street industrial district is a residential neighborhood.
I’m pointing out these conformities (and non-conformities) for a reason. The zoning map (and use tables) dictate what is allowed today, along with specifying a vision for the future. Our zoning bylaw happens to contain a strong statement to this effect: “It is the purpose of this Bylaw to discourage the perpetuity of nonconforming uses and structures whenever possible” (section 8.1.1(A)). Despite the strong statement of intent, it can take decades (if not generations) for a built environment to catch up with the bylaw’s prescriptions.
I’ll finish this post with a breakdown of how condominiums are distributed across the various zoning districts:
| Zone | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| (N/A) | 14 | 15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -14 |
| B1 | 16 | 16 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 22 | 22 | 22 | 6 |
| B2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| B2A | 19 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | -1 |
| B3 | 55 | 55 | 61 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 4 |
| B4 | 47 | 47 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 59 | 12 |
| I | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 18 | 0 |
| R1 | 140 | 144 | 146 | 148 | 150 | 154 | 162 | 168 | 28 |
| R2 | 1355 | 1406 | 1456 | 1518 | 1574 | 1670 | 1723 | 1816 | 461 |
| R3 | 22 | 25 | 28 | 31 | 31 | 37 | 37 | 39 | 17 |
| R4 | 65 | 67 | 67 | 79 | 79 | 79 | 79 | 79 | 14 |
| R5 | 616 | 616 | 616 | 616 | 616 | 616 | 616 | 616 | 0 |
| R6 | 630 | 632 | 635 | 683 | 683 | 683 | 686 | 686 | 56 |
| R7 | 243 | 243 | 243 | 243 | 243 | 243 | 243 | 243 | 0 |
The last column (“delta”) shows the difference between 2013 and 2020. The largest increase occurred in the R2 (two-family) district, followed by R6 (medium-density apartments, where most of the increase took place in 2014) and R1 (single-family).
That it will do it for the first installation. In the next post, we’ll look at how the cost (assessed values, actually) of Arlington’s low density housing has changed over the last seven years.
Here is a spreadsheet, containing the various tables shown in this article.
Notes
Arlington’s zoning map divides the town into a set of districts, and each district has regulations about what kinds of buildings and uses are allowed (or not allowed). The districts mentioned in this article are:
- B1 (Neighborhood Office district)
- B2 (Neighborhood Business distrct)
- B2A (Major Business District)
- B3 (Village Business District)
- B4 (Vehicular-Oriented Business District)
- I (Industrial District)
- R0 (Single-Family, large-lot district)
- R1 (Single-Family Distict)
- R2 (Two-Family District)
- R3 (Three-Family District)
- R4 (Townhouse District)
- R5 (Low-Density Apartment District)
- R6 (Medium-Density Apartment District)
- R7 (High-Density Apartment District)
Arlington’s Zoning Bylaw describes each district in detail (see sections 5.4.2, 5.5.2, and 5.6.2)
Dave Weinstock, an Arlington resident interested in affordable housing wondered about the concept of “developer math”. The math involved in planning an affordable housing projects is a problem that needs to get solved in order to have anything built here in Arlington, or anywhere. This topic comes up frequently in community discussions about the need for more housing.
Questions are raised around:
- 1- Why build so many units vs. smaller buildings
- 2- Why parking is costly and inefficient use of land
- 3- Why can’t more affordable or all affordable units be built?
- 4- The cost of subsidizing affordable units and how that may translate to higher rental rates/costs, etc.
Dave found a great Architecture and Development firm in Atlanta (Kronberg Urbanists + Architects, based in Atlanta GA) that lays out a nice presentation, includes sample proformas, and real life scenarios that may help us understand this piece of the puzzle better when evaluating any project and how developers may be incented to build certain types of projects or do certain types of work.
Here is a link, reformatted to be within this website, to the presentation, showing the varieties of choices, costs, formulas and outcomes developers consider before deciding if the project can be built: https://equitable-arlington.org/developer-math_kua_071420/
Much of our hope for more affordable housing depends on the market forces of capitalism and the willingness of developers to build for good, not just for profit. But the developers must be able to cover their costs. Many communities are highly skeptical of developers, assuming the community will get tricked, the developer will get greedy and the promised housing will be a disappointment. Trust is needed. But so is verification. We all need to learn the developer math.
What are the math factors that a developer considers before deciding to build affordable housing?
Here is a link to the original presentation. https://www.kronbergua.com/post/mr-mu-let-s-talk-about-math
State Senator Cindy F. Friedman has written a letter to Town Meeting Members supporting Warrant Article 12 and a meaningful MBTA Communities Plan. She writes:
We all want Arlington and Massachusetts to remain welcoming, accessible places to live. In addition to our deficit of housing, I recognize the importance of encouraging smaller, more sustainable housing in walkable areas. Arlington’s Warrant Article 12 will provide a meaningful framework for making progress in these areas. The problems we are experiencing now —out of reach housing prices for new construction and existing homes — exacerbate the crisis and are seriously threatening the economic vibrancy of our communities.
To read Friedman’s full letter, click here for the PDF.
by Steve Revilak
The term “AMI” or “Area Median Income” comes up in almost any discussion about affordable housing, because it’s used to set rents and the household incomes for people who are eligible to live in affordable dwellings. AMI is a fairly technocratic concept and my goal is to make the concept (and the numbers) easier to understand.
AMIs are set each year by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; broadly speaking, an AMI is the median income of a region. Arlington is part of the “Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH HUD Metro FMR Area” which consists of more than 100 cities and towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. Median incomes represent the “middle” family income of an area—half of households make more, and half make less.
In the process of turning median incomes into income limits, HUD also considers household size: larger households are assigned larger AMI limits than smaller ones, in order to reflect the higher cost of living for more family members.
How do these limits translate into affordable housing regulations? Arlington’s affordable housing requirements (aka “inclusionary zoning”) require that rents for affordable units be priced for the 60% area median income, but the dwellings are available to households making up to 70%. Let’s show an example with some numbers.
| Household size | 60% Income Limit | 70% Income Limit | 60% Rent |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $68,520 | $79,940 | $1,717/month |
| 2 | $78,360 | $91,420 | $1,959/month |
| 3 | $88,140 | $102,830 | $2,203/month |
HUD considers an apartment suitable for a household if it has one bedroom less than the number of household members, so a two-bedroom apartment would be suitable for a household of three, a one-bedroom would be suitable for a household of two, and a studio would be suitable for a household of one. The monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment would be calculated as follows: $88,140 ÷ 12 × 30% = $2,203. The 30% comes from HUD’s rule that affordable housing tenants should not be cost-burdened, meaning that they pay no more than 30% of their income in rent.$88k or $102k/year can seem like a lot of money (and once upon a time it was). To get a better sense of what these income levels mean, I looked into what kinds of jobs pay these wages. To that end, I found wage information from the Arlington Public Schools report to Town Meeting, the Arlington town budget, and wage data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here are a few scenarios:
Scenario 1: single adult
Scenario 1 represents a single adult living alone, and earning between $68,520 and $79,940. Jobs in this pay range include:
- Elementary classroom teacher ($62,000 – $75,000)
- Town planner ($75,000 – 79,000)
- Animal Control Officer ($72,000)
- Firefighter ($73,640)
- Librarian ($70,395)
- Lab Technician ($70,710)
- Social Worker ($71,470)
- Subway operator ($72,270)
- Licensed Practical Nurse ($75,690)
- Paralegal ($77,500)
- Chef ($78,040)
- Carpenter ($78,000)
Scenario 2: single parent with household of two
Scenario 2 represents a single parent earning between $78,360 and $91,420/year. Jobs in this pay range include:
- Office Manager – Assessor’s office ($80,399)
- Assistant Town Clerk ($77,375)
- Town Engineer ($74,000 – $80,000)
- Police Department Patrol Officer ($87,000)
- Town Budget Director ($88,488)
- Telecommunications equipment installer ($80,350)
- Plasterer and Stucco Mason ($82,250)
- Electrician ($82,380)
- Cement Mason ($86,250)
- Plumber and pipe fitter ($90,580)
Scenario 3: household of two, both adults
Scenario 3 has two adults, each earning $39,180 – $45,710 per year. Jobs in this salary range include several that we’ve come to know as “essential workers” during the pandemic.
- Special education teaching assistant ($34,290)
- Arlington Public Schools Paraprofessional ($36,290 – 42,440)
- Substitute Teacher ($34,921)
- Inspectional Services Record Keeper ($44,481)
- Food preparation worker ($39,590)
- Bartender ($39,730)
- Childcare worker ($40,470)
- Ambulance Driver ($40,890)
- Waiter ($41,440)
- Pharmacy aide ($41,460)
- Bank teller ($42,270)
- Tailor and dressmaker ($43,790)
- Restaurant cook ($44,140)
You may have noticed gaps in these lists — for example, there are no jobs listed in the $50,000 – $60,000 range because it’s in between the income limits for one- and two-income households. It’s also worth noting that a fair number of town employees’ salaries would qualify them for affordable housing (the town is Arlington’s largest employer).
So who qualifies to live in affordable housing? People with a lot of ordinary, working-class jobs, including many town employees.
Beginning last July, 2020, the Town of Arlington and community groups in the town are sponsoring a number of webinars and zoom conversations addressing the need for affordable housing programs in Arlington. Several factors contribute to the Arlington housing situation: diversity of housing types, prices, diversity of incomes, availability of housing subsidies, rapid growth in property values that greatly exceed the rate of growth of income.
But racism, both historic and current, continues to stand out as a significant force contributing to the difficult housing situation.
One of the first public discussion in the Town on this subject was organized by Arlington Human Rights Commission (AHRC) on July 8, 2020. View it here: