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Why Does Arlington Need Housing?

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This infographic demonstrates in data and graphs why Arlington needs more housing.

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  1. Fiscal Impact
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New Housing Offers Fiscal Benefits to Communities

A study by Elise Rapoza and Michael Goodman shows that new housing construction in MA does not have an adverse affect on municipal or school budgets. And when it might, state funding covers the difference. This study contradicts the often heard argument against new housing development, especially multi-family housing, because it, the argument claims, it will have a negative fiscal impact on communities.

In the aggregate, development of new housing offers net fiscal benefit to both municipalities and the state. Additional analysis validates a second study which found that increased housing production does not predict enrollment changes in Massachusetts school districts. In the new study, a distinct minority of municipalities did incur net fiscal burdens—burdens that the net new state tax proceeds associated with the development of new housing are more than sufficient to offset.

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Real Estate Transfer Tax Funds for Affordable Housing

The City of Somerville estimates that a 2% real estate transfer fee — with 1% paid by sellers and 1% paid by buyers, and that exempts owner-occupants (defined as persons residing in the property for at least two years) — could generate up to $6 million per year for affordable housing. The hotter the market, and the greater the number of property transactions, the more such a fee would generate.

Other municipalities are also looking at this legislation but need “home rule” permission, one municipality at a time, from the state to enact it locally. Or, alternatively, legislation could be passed at the state level to allow all municipalities to opt into such a program and design their own terms. This would be much like the well regarded Community Preservation Act (CPA) program that provides funds for local governments to do historic preservation, conservation, etc.

This memorandum from the City of Somerville to the legislature provides a great deal of information on the history, background and justification for such legislation.

House bill 1769, filed January, 2019, is an “Act supporting affordable housing with a local option for a fee to be applied to certain real estate transactions“.

COMMENT:

KK:  This article suggests Arlington may be likely to pass a real estate transfer tax:  https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/12/19/boston-one-step-closer-to-a-luxury-real-estate-transfer-tax/

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State Senator Cindy F. Friedman Supports the MBTA Communites Plan

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.

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Arlington Can’t Wait for Affordable Housing to Just Naturally Occur

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.

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The Affordable Homes Act

by Steve Revilak

On Tuesday August 6, 2024, Governor Healey signed the Affordable Homes Act (H.4977) into law.  It’s a significant piece of legislation that will take positive strides toward addressing our state’s housing crisis. At 181 pages, the Affordable Homes Act is a lengthy bill, but the things it does generally fall into three categories: funding, changes to state law, and changes to state agencies.

The act authorizes more than five billion dollars to fund the creation, maintenance, and preservation of housing.  This includes $425M to housing authorities and local housing initiatives (including $2.5M for the Arlington Housing Authority), $60M to assist homeowners or tenants with a household member with blindness or severe disabilities, $70M for community-based efforts to develop supportive housing for persons with disabilities, and $100M to expand opportunities for first-time homebuyers.

The Affordable Homes Act makes several changes to Massachusetts zoning laws, including the legalization of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) statewide.  ADUs, also known as “granny flats” or “in-law apartments,” are a cost-effective way to add new housing, and they’re typically used to provide living quarters for relatives or caretakers, or to generate rental income for homeowners. ADUs are now allowed in all single-family zones in Massachusetts, by right, without the need for a discretionary permit.  Arlington has been a leader in this area, having passed an ADU bylaw in 2021, and it’s great to see this option extended throughout the Commonwealth.

Finally, the Affordable Homes Act makes a number of changes to state agencies, especially the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC).  The Act establishes a new Office of Fair Housing within the EOHLC, to “advance the elimination of housing discrimination.”  The Fair Housing office will provide periodic reports on progress towards achieving this goal.  EOHLC is also charged with creating and implementing a state-wide housing plan that will consider supply and demand, affordability, challenges unique to different regions of the state, and an analysis of local zoning laws.

While our legislators deserve kudos for putting this package together, they also deserve kudos for what they left out.  More than three hundred amendments were filed during House deliberations, and a number of them were intended to weaken the multi-family housing requirements of the MBTA Communities Act.  For example, one amendment, simply titled “Technical Correction” would have rewritten the transit community definitions, in order to reduce the housing requirements for Milton. We are heartened that our legislators did not go along with such shenanigans.

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Arlington’s Master Plan

A municipality’s master plan is intended to set the vision and start the process of crafting the future of the municipality in regard to several elements, housing, history, culture, open space, transportation, finance, etc. Arlington began a very public discussion about these issues and the development of the Master Plan in 2012. In 2015, after thorough community wide discussion, the Master Plan was adopted by Town Meeting. This year, 2019, the focus is on passing Articles that will amend the current zoning bylaws in order to implement the housing vision that was approved in 2015.

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The Color of Law on the old Allen Farm

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.

Plan of Allen Park, Arlington Mass. Dated June 1923.

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.

Allen Farm Deed. Southern Middlsex registry of deeds. Book 4631, page 218.

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”.

Allen farm deed (continued). Southern middlesex registry of deeds, book 4631, page 219.

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.

pdf of the deed.

Footnotes

[1] The Color of Law. Richard Rothstein. pg. 78

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2019 Arlington Redevelopment Board Report to Town Meeting

This 102 page document is the most recently revised set of recommendations by the Town of Arlington’s Redevelopment Board. The report takes into consideration the comments and information provided over the last few months’ public hearing process. It also incorporates a citizen petition which strengthens the case for increasing permanent affordable housing with the passage of these zoning related Articles. Town Meeting convenes on April 22, 2019.

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